Falsely Accused
by DarthRoden aka Carl
Summary: Helga is convicted of a crime she didn't commit and sentenced to a brutal Juvenile Detention Center. Can Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe prove her innocence? A story of Redemption and Love. Rated T For Mild Language and semi-Adult Content!
1. Prologue

**Introduction: **_**Ten-year-old Helga Pataki has a reputation for being one of the meanest bullies at PS 118. On the outside, she is as tough as they come, always yelling at people, scowling, and always ready to put up her ever-ready fists, **_**"Old Betsy"**_** and the **_**"Five Avengers."**

_**Yet, on the inside, she is a shy, smart, sensitive girl who stands up for her best friend, Phoebe, and dreams of being with Arnold, the boy she secretly loves deep down. Helga always allowed her insecurities and her reputation to keep her from expressing the deep, caring person that she truly is to all those around her.**_

_**One day, a terrible crime is committed at PS 118 and all of the evidence and suspicion points to Helga. Suspicion mounts and everyone except for Phoebe and Arnold believes her to be guilty. **_

_**Following a terrible miscarriage of justice, Helga is sent to a brutal juvenile detention center where she must endure every terror of imprisonment; from a pair of homicidal inmates and a resident psychologist who holds a bias for bullies in particular, to the unwanted attentions of a sadistic female head guard who abuses both her authority and the inmates.**_

_**Even through all of the trials and tribulations she must endure, Helga will discover new friends in several inmates and learn something of her own life and how she is seen by those she kept her distance from her whole life. At the same time, Arnold, with the help of his best friend Gerald and Helga's best friend Phoebe, must discover the truth of who framed Helga before their friend is destroyed by the injustice that took her away from them.**_

_**Can Helga survive? Can Arnold and the gang find a way to prove her innocence? Will Helga be destroyed, or find her redemption in juvenile detention? Who framed her and why?**_

_**Let's find out if Helga can survive being—Falsely Accused.**_

**Disclaimer:**_** I do not own "Hey Arnold!" Nickelodeon and Viacom do, nor did I create the characters of the show, Master Craig Bartlett did, I myself can only dream that I had that sort-of talent.**_

**Falsely Accused**

**By DarthRoden (a.k.a. Carl)**

**Prologue: A Prayer in the Dark**

_It was very dark in the little room. So dark in fact that the young girl couldn't see either her hand—or anything else for that matter—in front of her face, not that there was very much to look at in solitary confinement, also known to the rest of the general population as simply "The Hole."_

_In this case . . . _"The Hell Hole."

_She lay there, unblinking, on the uncomfortably bare cot, her hands resting behind her head because there was no pillow. There were no blankets either, nor was there any real need for them as the room was very hot. She was sweating, the smell of her own musky body odor, along with the stale smells of the small room's previous occupants, both human and otherwise, filled her nostrils—or rather, the one that was not filled with dried blood._

_The girl breathed through her mouth, causing her bruised ribs and battered face to hurt slightly. She wondered if her nose was still bleeding from the beating she'd receive earlier. Touching it, she winced and felt nothing sticky cling to her hand, just the rough feeling remnants of dried blood clinging to the bottom of one of her nostrils._

How long have I been in here?_ She thought to herself. The rational part of her mind told her she'd only been inside the small, dark room for about an hour or so, but the less than rational part of her thoughts wondered if that were really the case. Idly she asked herself, _Is there even such a thing as time in this place? _A part of her was worried she was slowly going mad here—a fear that she'd seen was not entirely unfounded in this place. _

_A small squeaking noise made her flinch slightly on the cot. She couldn't see the source in the darkness, but she heard the sound of those scurrying little feet quite clearly. Her heart sank in her chest. It was a rat!_

_The girl closed her eyes tightly in terror. She was afraid of rats, absolutely terrified of them! Her imagination caused her to picture the evil-looking creature in her mind's eye in all too vivid detail._

"_Please go away," she whispered in a very small, scared voice, shaking despite the oppressive heat of the small dark room. A spart of her worried about being bitten by a rat in the middle of the night (or was it daylight outside?) and getting rabies._

They can smell blood;_ a small panicked voice in the back of her mind reminded her. The rat shrieked, probably fighting with another one of its kind in the air vents._

_The girl then turned on her side, feeling the effects of the beating she'd receive earlier by the other inmates. Tough girls, all hardened thugs and criminals. Real bullies, not like she was, or rather had been before she came to this place._

_She crossed her arms across her chest, holding onto her bruised and aching shoulders, and began to cry softly. Crying came a lot more often to her these days than it had before._

_A part of her was very tired, hoping that sleep would soon take her. Yet, despite that, the girl was afraid to shut her eyes. Afraid of the rats, afraid of the dangerous prison guard, and most of all, afraid of the dreams she might have._

I don't want to be here!_ She thought to herself desperately. _I didn't do anything wrong! I don't deserve this! I'm innocent! Someone please believe me!

_But nobody had believed her when she told them these things. Not the police, not her classmates. She wasn't even certain that her own parents really believed her deep down—not that it would be much of a shock to her if she knew for a fact it was true. Neither of them really noticed her much when she had been around and barely knew her when she was. _

_So she ended up here, tossed into this hell, rejected by her peers and all those whom she considered her friends._

_No, that wasn't entirely true._

_There were at least two people who totally believed in her innocence. Her best friend, Phoebe . . . . and the golden-haired, football-headed boy that she loved with all of her heart._

_As she shut her eyes, wishing in vain for sleep to come and yet hoping at the same time that the nightmares would not come with them, Helga Pataki, through her quiet tears and sorrows, whispered a small, sincere prayer through her sobs. "Oh Arnold, my love, please, save me from this nightmare."_

_**To be continued . . . . **_


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One: The Confrontation**

Helga G. Pataki stomped up the front steps of PS 118, carrying her book bag over her right shoulder, a scowl plastered on her tough, plain-featured face. She looked like she was having a bad day; but then again, most people speculated that the fourth grader had been born having a bad day.

Everyone who knew the blonde, pigtailed girl and saw her coming usually had the good sense to move out of her way. One small third grade girl with curly red hair and wire-rimmed glasses, who didn't move quickly enough to suit her, was shoved roughly into the wall and landed hard on the floor, if the girl had been expecting an apology, she was sorely disappointed. Instead, Helga did even look in her direction as she said, annoyed, "Outta my way, geek-bait, I'm walking here!"

She continued on down the hallways in this manner, stomping down the corridors, glaring at people, shouting rude comments. She shot a glare at a second grade boy starring at her in the hallway and said, "What are _you_ looking at?" Another poor unfortunate third grade boy was shoved into an open locker head first for being in her way. Even older girls were not safe as she plowed right through five sixth graders muttering, "Gang way! Coming through!" All of which was normal behavior to anyone who knew the fourth grade terror, who was sometimes referred to by some of these same kids (of course not anywhere within earshot of her) as "Helga the Horrible."

Helga turned the corner to go to her locker and then . . . WHAM! She collided with someone coming around from the other side of the corner, heading in the same direction. She fell on her back, two of her books falling out of her book bag, along with her school library card, which went sliding down the hallway across the floor and stopping near the other wall. A couple of people laughed in the hallway, but didn't stop long enough for the bully to see who they were. Helga sat up, bracing herself on her arms, scowling angrily.

She was ready to tell off the moron who ran into her . . . but then she instantly froze at the sight of the person lying across from her. He was a familiar boy who looked a little shaken up, and with a couple of books lying scattered around him as well. Helga blinked. Time moved really slowly for her just then. Whatever angry retort Helga had been building up in her mind was instantly lost at the sight of those unkempt golden locks of yellow-blonde hair sticking out in soft turfs from the small blue cap; those warm green eyes so full of gentle kindness; those perfect pink lips, and of course, the distinctly football-shaped head of the boy she was looking at.

Now Helga's head was instantly filled with beautiful love poetry, romantic thoughts and images that some would consider a bit "too romantic" for a normal ten year old girl—especially since many of them consisted of intense make-out sessions. Her heart began to beat faster with a happiness that she only rarely felt, much less experienced, throughout her short and sad little existence. A warm feeling spread from her preteen heart and passed all over her thin, awkward-frame.

"Arnold?" She heard herself say, in an almost reverent whisper, the name of her one true love. The boy that she secretly loved from afar in a place deep inside that she never let anyone else see. Her mask of anger and annoyance that hid her insecurities and true feelings from the rest of the world slipped slightly.

The boy sat up, rubbing the back of his head, looking a little bewildered and blinked, almost as if he'd heard her whisper his name just then. Upon seeing her, a mixed look of worry, concern, and dread appeared on his oblong face, although the same gentle kindness and sensitivity that defined his character and sparked her deep love for him were still clearly visible behind those beautiful green, half-lidded orbs.

"Helga?" He said, speaking her name gently. Helga saw his perfect pink lips open and shape her name, heard the concern and worry in his voice all just for her sake. She suddenly felt very faint, feeling her entire girlhood tremble; her heart skipped a beat . . .

"Helga, are you okay?" Arnold asked as he got to his feet.

Suddenly, Helga blinked again and the spell was abruptly broken. She was forced out of her romantic musings and brought crashing back to reality. She shook her head and once again her usual mask of annoyance was back in place.

Glaring at Arnold, she shouted angrily, "Criminy! Why don't you watch where you're walking, _football-head!_ What a klutz! Sheesh!"

Arnold blinked, flinching slightly at her harsh words and said, "Sorry Helga, I didn't mean to. It was an accident." He sounded slightly hurt, like a puppy that just got hit with a rolled up newspaper.

Helga felt an instant pang of guilt at having hurt Arnold's feelings, one which she did not dare show outwardly. She simply rolled her eyes and said, in a slightly less annoyed tone, "Well, don't just stand there hovering over me and help me up." She extended a hand to him, which he took into his own. Helga felt that same jolt of warmth from before take over her whole body again as Arnold pulled her to her feet.

Then their eyes meet.

Both of them just stood there looking into each other's eyes for only a moment, their hands still clasped together. A small moment that neither of them could have described passed between them. Helga's large blue eyes meet Arnold's own green ones. Neither of them blinked. Then, almost as abruptly as it had happened, the all too brief moment passed and they both turned their eyes away toward the floor, letting go of the other's hand quickly as they did so.

"Um, thanks . . . err, Arnold," she muttered, not quite looking at him.

Arnold nodded a little and said quietly, "Uh, yeah . . . no problem, Helga."

Helga then knelt down to get her books. As she reached for one, she saw Arnold's hand reaching for the same one. She looked up at him to see Arnold looking back at her also at the very same instant. He'd also knelt down to help her. Was it her imagination or was Arnold actually blushing slightly? She felt her own face begin to go slightly warm as well.

"Um, I think this one's yours," Arnold said, holding out a small notebook to her.

She glanced down and saw that it was indeed hers; smiling slightly at first because Arnold was being nice to her and helping her gather her fallen books. Then, in an instant of recognition, Helga saw that the notebook was in fact one of the ones that she wrote out love poems, small lovesick musings and drawings about him in class and at home. She became nervous and she quickly snatched it out of his grasp and stuffed it into her book bag.

"Hey, who told you to touch my stuff, _monkey-face?_!" She shouted at him, her worries turning into anger once again.

Arnold's face took on a small, annoyed look. Those green, half-lidded eyes narrowed slightly. "Sorry, I was just trying to be helpful." He sounded very irked just then. He stood back up and turned to walk away.

Helga felt another pang of regret at her words. _Why do I have to turn into such a jerk to him?_ She asked herself annoyed. Letting out a sigh, she said, "Hey wait." Arnold did stop and face her again, a neutral expression on his face.

Helga was about to actually swallow some of her stupid pride for once and apologize for being rude to him, when she suddenly heard the sound of someone being shoved hard against a locker. It was a sound, which Helga heard often and was quite familiar with as a school tough girl. She looked over in the direction the sound came from, as did Arnold.

Down the hallway near the lockers, where her library card still lay unnoticed by all, Helga and Arnold saw two very tall sixth grade girls standing over a much smaller fourth grade girl, who was on all fours, feeling around on the floor blindly. The two older girls were looking down at the small girl with identical amused sneers plastered on their faces.

Both Arnold and Helga recognized the small oriental girl, whose glasses were currently discarded on the floor nearby along with some books and papers. "Phoebe!" Helga called out her best friend's name as she stood back up and ran over toward her quickly, her fallen books forgotten. Arnold was right behind her, also running over to help, looking as concerned for Phoebe as Helga felt.

Helga recognized the sixth graders bullying her best friend almost instantly as she ran over: Cookie and Simone.

There was a little history between those two sixth graders, Phoebe and Helga.

About eight months ago, Phoebe had been given a trial period promotion to the sixth grade as a reward for her academic achievements. While Phoebe was there in sixth grade, these two girls Cookie and Simone, along with two other sixth graders, Connie and Maria, pretended to befriend her. They pretended to bond with Phoebe, even welcomed her as a member of their little friendship club.

Unfortunately for Phoebe, while she may have been highly intelligent and a genius with school assignments, she was also a shy, insecure girl openly and not a very good judge of character. The four girls, being expert manipulators for their age, saw these things in her and decided to exploit her desire to do well and to make friends.

The whole time, they were simply taking advantage of her mind and her naïve innocence to connive her into giving them her money for flimsy excuses, and then manipulated her into doing their homework for them. Then, the next day, when a younger, seemingly smarter, and even more naive girl had been promoted from the third grade came to their class; the manipulative sixth graders dropped Phoebe and completely shut her out.

Poor Phoebe had been devastated and hurt when Helga later found her in the girl's bathroom. Upon hearing of her best and only close friend being used and treated so badly, Helga pulled a particularly nasty prank on the four girls, which they so richly deserved. The memory of those screams still filled Helga with such warm thoughts to this day.

Later on, the other two girls, Connie and Maria, broke off their friendship with Cookie and Simone. Helga heard a rumor that Simone, who was the brains between her and Cookie, was hanging with a very bad crowd these days. Connie and Maria, who despite having somewhat bad reputations of their own, were nowhere near being that bad. Cookie stayed with Simone simply because she was just as manipulative as the latter, but not nearly as smart. She was little more than Simone's sidekick. Helga suspected that Simone had been the real mastermind behind Phoebe's exploitation.

"Hey! What's going on here?" Helga said angrily as she approached the bullies, who were both about a head taller than her. She walked over and placed herself between the two older girls and Phoebe, glaring up at their smug faces.

"Helga!" Phoebe squeaked, looking up from her hands and knees, a panicked expression clear on her face. "T-they said they were going to beat me up if I didn't give them my lunch money!" She explained in a voice full of fear and worry.

Arnold knelt down next to Phoebe, picked up her fallen glasses and handed them back to her. Helga, glancing out of the corner of her left eye, flashed a small, grateful smile to Arnold as he helped her best friend to her feet and steadied her.

Now she turned all of her attention to the two sixth graders, both of whom looked down at her with that smug, superior way that older kids with better social standing looked back at the likes of younger students, whom they considered to be so far beneath them on the food chain. Helga's eyes narrowed at them, "Is that true?" She sounded very dangerous as she said that. Nobody messes with her best friend.

Cookie blew a bubble of the gum she was chewing, which Helga could smell was strawberry flavored, and smacking her gum answered, "Yeah, so what if we were, Pataki? Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Helga took a step toward Cookie and said, "Maybe I ought to knock that stupid gum down your throat for starters!" Her left hand curled into a fist that she didn't yet raise. She was aware that several students were stopping in the hallway and looking at the altercation hopefully for a fight.

Simone, the taller of the two, took a step forward herself, standing right next to Cookie and said, "Oh yeah? You and what army, you little fourth grade snot?" Her little prissy grin widened and her own hazel eyes narrowed, in an almost daring manner.

Outwardly, Helga kept her worries off her face as she glared at the two of them. Inside her mind, she was calculating the odds. She knew that Arnold would not hit a girl, being both the gallant and nonviolent boy that he was and that Phoebe would not be much good in a brawl, being more the intellectual type. The odds were two against one and the opposition outweighed her as well. She knew her only course of action was to bluff her way through and rely on her reputation.

Helga put on her best intimidating face and said to Simone, "Me and my two pals_ 'Old Betsy' _and_ 'The Five Avengers'_ that's who, you arrogant hussy!" She raised both of her fists, knuckles first, into fighting position. "Leave Phoebe alone! I mean it, you two!"

Cookie blinked slightly and took a step backwards. She didn't have to stomach for any sort-of fight. Simone was also slightly uncertain just then as well, but she didn't back away. She looked around noticing the crowd that was gathering, starting to look uncomfortable. Then she looked back at Helga and said, "Think your pretty tough don't you, you ugly little twerp? Well, I think you're bluffing."

Helga leaned forward a little and smiled at her slightly. She could tell that Simone was nowhere near as confident as she sounded now that they had an audience. "Don't try me, Simone. Now take your little stooge and get out of here. And if I ever hear about you picking on my friend again, you're going to be sorry. Do you understand me?"

At this point, Simone began to realize that she was no longer in control of the situation anymore. Her eyes seemed to dart over to the students who were all watching on. Then she cast a quick look over the top of Helga's head and saw something that made her smirk. She leaned over, till her face was merely inches from Helga's. Helga could feel the older girl's breath on her face as she hissed, in a tone that was just barely loud enough for Helga to hear over the hallway noise, "Don't sing it, bring it, you skinny little _bitch_!"

Helga's eyes flashed and a sudden anger filled her. Gritting her teeth and growling, she shoved Simone as hard as she could against the concrete wall beside the lockers. The older girl's right elbow hit one of the lockers with a metallic thud and the girl landed on the floor right next to where her library card still lay.

"Helga! No! Stop!" Arnold said quickly, grabbing her left fist quickly in an attempt to stop her. She turned her head, ready to tell him to stay out of it.

"I saw that, Miss Pataki!"

Helga turned, as did everyone else in the hallway, to see Principal Wartz walking over to them, his black shoes, as well as his balding head, gleaming in the brightly lit hallway. The spectators began to walk away to their classes, not wanting to be around in case the administrator turned his disciplinary powers on them. Wartz stopped and stood over Helga, looking down at her, a frown was set on his face.

"Now, Miss Pataki," he began in his usual pompous tones. "I don't need to remind you again that striking another student is a clear violation of school policy, do I?"

"Hey, I barely touched her," Helga said, smirking slightly as she said this. Then she turned serious and pointed at said, "Besides, they were the ones picking on Phoebe first." She pointed at Cookie and Simone, who was now getting to her feet slowly, her right hand slightly behind her back for some reason.

"Is that true, Miss Heyerdahl?" Principal Wartz asked, looking over at Phoebe, who still stood next to Arnold. She was still a bit shaken up over the excitement of the whole ordeal.

The small, half-Asian girl nodded meekly, "Yes sir, Principal Wartz."

Arnold added, looking at the principal sincerely, "Helga was only trying to stop them, sir, but she picked the fight." He pointed at Simone, who for some reason had a small, amused smirk on her face for some reason.

"Why you little twerp," Cookie said, glaring at Arnold. Helga frowned, looking over at her in loathing. It was bad enough that they picked on Phoebe, but to have that stuck-up tramp Cookie talk about her Arnold like that was almost too much. Helga briefly wondered how much more trouble she could get into if she just beat a little of the hell out of her also.

"Okay, I've heard quite enough," Principal Wartz said, and then looked at Helga. "Miss Pataki, you will serve after school detention in the cafeteria for an hour." He then turned his attention to Cookie and Simone. "And as for you two, you will both be serving a half hour of it with her."

"What?" Helga blinked, looking at Principal Wartz outraged by what she just heard. "B-but they started it! Why the heck do I have to serve more time than them?"

"Because you were the one I saw pushing people down, young lady," he told her simply. "School district's policy on fighting is quite clear on this. Actual eyewitness accounts of individuals striking another student and any gang activity observed by administrators or teachers warrants stronger penalties."

Helga glanced over at Simone, who gave her a smirk, then shared a small secret wink with Cookie, who smirked at her also and puckered her lips. It was then that Helga realized what happened. Simone must have seen Wartz coming when she whispered that word to her and set her up for a fall. Anger boiled up inside her over this injustice. They tried to hurt her best friend, and she was the one who had to serve more time in detention just because she stood up for her best friend?

"_B-but that's not fair!"_ She protested, raising her voice slightly at the principal.

Principal Wartz's eyes narrowed slightly and he frowned warningly. "Young lady, one more criticism of school policy out of you and you will spend another hour in detention tomorrow afternoon as well. Is that understood?"

Helga folded her arms across her chest, knowing that arguing would only get her in more trouble and said, "Yeah, yeah, I understand." Her frown said that she still didn't like it.

"Good," Principal Wartz said, looking even more pompous. "Now run along and get to class," he said, then pausing to think a moment, added, "but no running in the hallway." With that the principal turned and waddled away like an overgrown duck.

_Sheesh, what a moron, _Helga thought to herself, rolling her eyes.

"This isn't over, Pataki," Simone said to Helga, hatred glaring out of her narrowed eyes. "You'll be sorry you ever messed with us! Come on, Cookie." With one last frown at Helga, Cookie and Simone turned and walked away, turning a corner further down the now emptying hallway.

Helga turned to look at her best friend and asked her, in a surprisingly gentle voice, "Are you all right, Feebes?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine now, thanks to you, Helga," Phoebe replied, looking up at her, smiling gratefully.

'Yeah, yeah, stop sucking up," Helga said flippantly, with a mock scowl and a small smile on her face as she put a friendly hand on the smaller girl's thin shoulder. It was starting to get just too sappy for her taste just then. Phoebe chuckled, feeling a lot better.

"Hey Helga, we better go get our books and get to class before the bell rings," Arnold said, turning and walking back over to the corner where their books and Helga's book bag still lay. Nodding, Helga waited on Phoebe to gather up her own fallen books, and then followed after the football-headed boy, who by that time already had both sets sorted and Helga's books back in her bag.

"Um, here you go, Helga," Arnold said, looking at her with his usual good-natured smile on his face. She felt her knees beginning to turn to jelly again. Quickly she took her books from him and started to scowl at him at first to cover up her feelings of gratitude, but something held her back this time. It was the look Arnold was giving her. He was staring at her, as if he suddenly found her very interesting. It was a very thoughtful look that made his half-lidded eyes look dreamy.

"And what are you smiling about, hair-boy?" She asked, raising one side of her unibrow curiously.

Arnold blinked, almost as if coming out of a daydream and said, "Huh? Oh, well I thought it was pretty amazing how you stood up to those bullies like you did, Helga." He smiled a little more as he picked up his own books and Helga could swear that, once again, she saw a slight flush appear on his cheeks.

There was another moment between them just then. The memory of a moment the two of them shared only a few months ago when Arnold said something similar about her doing something "pretty amazing." Her mind flashed back to the words he'd spoken to her on top of the Future Tech Industries building when they were fighting to save Arnold's neighborhood from being destroyed. He'd commented on how she'd risked everything she would have gained by helping him out. _That's a pretty amazing thing to do for someone you claim to hate_. It filled Helga with that same warmth again, especially because it was her he called "amazing" this time, and was actually smiling at her as he did so!

Helga glanced over and noticed the small, knowing look Phoebe was giving her behind her thick glasses. Her small, dark eyes twinkled slightly in amusement. It snapped Helga back to reality.

Rolling her eyes, Helga returned to her usual scowling demeanor and said, "Criminy, I do one lousy good deed and all of a sudden, I'm Mother Theresa." She turned to Phoebe and said, "Come on, Feebes, let's get to class." She turned and began to walk away; not looking back so Arnold couldn't see the smile on her face.

"Coming," Phoebe said, in a chipper, almost singing voice. Then she gave Arnold a small, knowing smile and waved to him as she turned to follow Helga. "See you later, Arnold."

"Yeah, see you in class, Arnold-o," Helga called out over her shoulder when she was turning the corner, Phoebe followed behind trying to catch up.

Arnold watched as Helga walked away with Phoebe and sighed in frustration, although he smiled slightly even as he shook his head. _She's still so hard to understand sometimes, _He thought to himself. _One minute she can be such a pain in the neck, and the next minute she can be so . . . so different. _He wasn't sure that "different" was the right word somehow, but he couldn't quite seem to think of what the right word was just then. He shrugged it off and followed after the two girls to class before the tardy bell rang.

Unknown to the three of them, Cookie and Simone had been spying on them from around the corner that they'd turned. Both of them felt nothing but the utmost contempt as they'd watched the whole friendly scene play out.

"Who does that skinny little fourth grade brat think she is, acting all tough and what not?" Cookie asked frowning at Helga's back as she smacked on her gum.

"Don't worry, Cookie," Simone said, a small, cold smile forming on her face. "I just came up with an idea on how we're going to teach little miss bad girl a lesson in manners."

"Huh? How we gonna to do that?" Cookie asked, confused.

"Oh you'll see soon enough," Simone said, the cold smile growing wider, more malevolent. "I'm gonna call Billy, we're gonna need his help on this one. Trust me, that Pataki bitch doesn't know what real bad is yet, but I promise you when we're finished taking care of her, that little pigtailed brat will understand what _bad_ is all about."

The tardy bell rang out loudly in the nearly empty hallway.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	3. Chapter Two: Words In The School Yard

**Chapter Two: Words in the School Yard**

Later that day, around noon, just after lunch period, the fourth grade class was having recess in the school yard behind the building. It was somewhat cool outside and sky above them was off and on sunny, with some dark clouds breaking the sunshine every now and again. Autumn weather was just about to take hold.

Helga stomped out into the yard, with her best friend and sidekick Phoebe by her side. Again kids made way for her as she marched over toward the fence where the other girls in her class sat, talking with several of the boys by the bench tables. Among these were Rhonda, Nadine, Lila, Sheena, Curly, Sid, Stinky, Harold, Gerald and Arnold.

When they approached everyone, Phoebe offered a small, cheerful smile at Gerald, followed by a shy wave of her hand. "Hello, Gerald."

Gerald grinned and gave her a flirty look with his deep brown eyes as he said, "Hey there, Phoebe." Phoebe actually smiled a little more and a slight blush was visible on her cheeks.

Helga rolled her eyes at this and muttered under her breath, "Criminy."

"Hey Helga," Rhonda said just then, looking at her with her usual snooty, judgmental arrogance. "Word is that Wartz gave you detention again today. This is what, the fifth time this year alone? You must be going for the record." The other kids were all starting to look their way now. Rhonda loved being in the spotlight, especially when she was tearing someone down.

"Oh go cram it in your ear, Rhonda Lloyd," Helga said, looking at the rich girl with her usual annoyed sneer. She was still angry over her after school detention, even though it had been three hours since it had been assigned. Indeed, her outrage over the injustice of the situation hadn't diminished at all in those last few hours. If anything it managed somehow to deepen.

"Stupid Wartz and his stupid damn detentions! I can't believe that tramp Simone got to me like that!" She spat angrily, annoyed with herself at allowing herself to be provoked by that arrogant sixth grader.

She kicked an empty soda can that had been lying on the ground at her feet hard, sending it flying off and hitting Harold hard in the back of the head, with a slight bonk and fell to the ground with a metallic clang. "Ow! Hey! Watch it, Helga!" Came Harold's whinny complaining, all of which Helga ignored.

Helga sat down roughly on the bench, scowling at the concrete. "It just isn't fair that I have to serve more time than those two brats!" Helga said, continuing to complain about the Principal's obvious error in judgment.

"Well I heard about the whole thing, Helga," Rhonda said, putting in her two cents. "Jenny Seletto told me she saw it all happen. She said that you were the one who ganged up on that sixth grader, Simone and shoved her into the wall."

"Ganged up?!" Helga said, incredulously turning on Rhonda. "It was two on one with her and that other brat, Cookie, and they were both bigger than I was! How the hell could I have ganged up on them?!"

Stinky and Sid, who'd both been listening to the conversation from nearby, came over just then. "Well, I reckon it's on-account-of your Helga G. Pataki, one of the toughest dang gals in this whole school," pointed out Stinky, in his rather dull way of seeing things with his thick country accent.

"Yeah, Helga," said Nadine. "I mean, you're the one with the reputation here. Cookie and Simone are both bad girls, but neither of them has a bully's reputation."

Helga snorted derisively at that. "Could have fooled me after the way they were both pushing Phoebe around?" Phoebe nodded, attesting to the truth of those words. She had the bruise from where Cookie had shoved her into the lockers on her right shoulder to prove their accuracy.

Lila spoke up then, causing every boy on the school yard, including Arnold, to look over her way. "Well, Helga, that may be the case, but you were the one who shoved Simone into the wall ever-so hard and acted no differently."

"Yeah, I did, but only because she called me a bitch under her breath," Helga said, her eyes going very hard as she spat the word. "She deliberately said it to provoke me, and I fell for it!" She pounded a fist onto the top of the table, creating a loud thump that made all the girls and a few of the boys jump slightly or wince. "And then that bloated walrus Wartz goes and gives me an hour, because I stood up to a couple of bullies!" She growled.

If Helga had known what the ramifications of her next words would have been, she might never have uttered them.

"Just wait until later, I'm gonna make sure that Wartz is sorry he ever gave Helga G. Pataki detention," she muttered angrily, thinking about all of the ways she would disrupt her afternoon detention, little annoying things to get back at Wartz in oh-so small, but satisfying ways.

Everyone else started walking away from her just then, not wanting to be on the bad side of such an unpredictable girl as Helga Pataki could be, especially in her state of anger. Phoebe walked off to talk to Gerald, both of them smiling a little more.

Only Arnold stood near Helga at the moment. He looked at her as she sat there, and seemed to be trying to find the right way to start off a conversation. Arnold began. "Look Helga, I know that Principal Wartz punishment wasn't fair . . ."

Helga blew air through her teeth at that and said, sarcastically, "Boy, that's the statement of the week, _football-head_."

Arnold continued, not at all put out by Helga's sarcasm, "But the important thing was you stood up for Phoebe and stopped those bullies from hurting her more."

"Yeah, and look where it got me too, Arnold-o," Helga said, frowning. "No good deed ever goes unpunished, I guess."

Arnold looked at her a moment more and asked, "Helga, why didn't you just ignore that sixth grader instead of stooping to her level and pushing her? If that's what Simone wanted, why did you give in and give it to her?"

Helga looked at him crossly and replied, "Because nobody talks that way to Helga G. Pataki and nobody messes with my friends either!"

"But violence never solves anything," Arnold countered. "All it did was get you in trouble again."

"Yeah, well if I didn't finish that fight, then people would think I'm a wimp." Helga told him, answering in the only way she knew how.

Arnold looked at her a moment with those thoughtful half-lidded green eyes and actually smiled at her just then. It was enough to make Helga stop scowling for a moment and make her heart flutter. He continued, "Helga, nobody around her thinks you're a wimp, believe me. But you don't have to give in to people like that. You don't always need to use your fists to prove you're tough."

"Yeah right," Helga said, clearly disbelieving him.

"Helga, both of those girls were backing down when you stood up to them," Arnold told her. "It was only when Simone goaded you that you pushed her. That's what got you in trouble."

"What's your point, hair-boy? That I deserve to spend detention after school for standing up for Phoebe?" She asked him frowning.

He shook his head. "No, of course you don't. I also think that it wasn't fair for the principal to give you detention. The point is that violence didn't get you anywhere, just having the courage to stand up against what was wrong was enough."

Helga knew that he was right, but she was still very irked with herself for not thinking of it before. She stood up and, being taller than him by about a head, looked down at him and said, very annoyed. "Look, why don't you go peddle your 'Mister Sensitivity' and 'Do-The-Right-Thing' advice to someone who cares, okay bucko?"

Arnold looked at her and sighed, disappointed. "Okay Helga, forget I even said anything." He turned and walked away, shoulders stooped and not even looking back.

Helga sighed as soon as she knew he was out of earshot. Even though she thought he had a big heart but no sense of reality, she loved him for his optimism and his ability to see alternatives to violence and confrontation.

She quickly ran behind the large dumpster nearby and pulled out the heart-shaped golden locket with Arnold's picture she kept close to her heart. Arnold's smiling face looked back up at her. Helga smiled down at it a moment and sighed heavily.

"How I wish I had the courage that you do, my love. I wish I could just turn the other cheek, but alas, I must be who I am. I just wish that somehow, you could accept me for whom I am and see that underneath this mean, scowling, cold exterior is a person who both loves and respects you for your optimism and your unwavering sense of right and wrong . . . oh and for your beautiful blue eyes, my darling." She sighs.

Then she paused and listened. No heavy breathing. Helga turned and saw a piece of paper taped to the dumpster. She pulled it off and read it:

_Dear Helga, _

_I had to go on a trip to my grandma's today, won't be back till Monday. _

_Regards, Brainy_

Helga scowled, wondering how on earth he knew when she would be there. _Oh well, its_ _just one of those mysteries, I guess?_ Helga thought shrugging and crumpling up the note and tossing it into the dumpster.

Helga went back to looking at her locket and smiling thoughtfully as she stole glances over at her beloved, who was talking to Gerald and the other boys, all of whom were laughing about something.

Arnold walked away from Helga, once again feeling frustrated and annoyed by Helga's bad attitude.

_Why does she always have to be so argumentative_? He thought to himself and sighed. Deep down, Arnold knew that Helga might act all tough and uncaring, but that deep down she really wasn't. She proved that today when she stood up for Phoebe the way she did.

Deep down, Arnold knew that Helga wasn't always the mean, angry, scowling bully that she always pretended to be. In fact, despite her reputation as a cold-hearted bully, Arnold knew for certain that Helga was just as sane and normal as any other girl in the whole school, with the same passions and feelings as anyone else. He knew that she was a very warmhearted person behind her mask of indifference and annoyance.

Arnold also knew she had feelings for him in particular, though a small part of him still had trouble dealing with that sometimes.

The strange thing was that, since she confessed to him her love and respect three months ago, on top of the FTI building, when they were saving the neighborhood from being destroyed, Arnold began to see Helga somewhat differently. Now that he knew the reason why she picked on him, Arnold found ways of dealing with it more often. Helga had been such a fixture in his life since preschool that he was almost used to being hit with spit balls, and being called 'football-head' on a daily basis.

Because of this, things between the two of them seemed to be getting slightly better. Sure she still called him names and pulled pranks occasionally, but now that he understood why she did them, they now no longer seemed cruel or even as annoying anymore. But sometimes, just like today in the halls, when she stopped Cookie and Simone from hurting Phoebe, Arnold caught a glimpse of another Helga that he'd seen glimpses of his whole life and always somehow knew was there deep down. That Helga was someone who showed she was much more than a mean, scowling, sarcastic bully. She was someone who showed that she was loyal and true to her friends and had the courage to stand up for them.

Arnold smiled to himself. That Helga was someone who was very impressive.

"Hey Arnold!"

That call brought Arnold out of his thoughts and he blinked, "Huh? What?" The world came back into focus.

Gerald was standing there before him, with Sid, Stinky, Harold and Curly. He'd finished talking to Phoebe, who went over to talk to Sheena now, and came over with the guys when they saw Arnold finished talking to Helga.

"Hello Arnold, are you in there, man?" Gerald said, knocking on his forehead slightly and smiling.

"Hey, cut it out, Gerald," Arnold said, slightly annoyed brushing his best friend's hand away.

"I'm sorry man, I guess that you were too busy thinking about Lila, huh?" Gerald said, slightly amused.

Arnold was confused, "What? Gerald, you know that Lila and I are just friends, and that she doesn't like-me like-me, she just likes me. Besides, I wasn't thinking about her at all."

"Well, who is she man," Gerald asked, and the other boys looked on with funny amused smiles on their faces.

Raising an eyebrow, Arnold asked, "What are you talking about? What makes you think I was thinking of a girl?"

Gerald smiled and said, "Hey man, I know you, okay. I've seen you with that same look whenever you've decided to start crushing on some girl." Gerald grinned now, enjoying teasing his buddy and added, "Whoever it was, she must be something. You were walking over here, completely zoned out, with a really goofy, love sick sort-of smile on your face."

Arnold's eyes widened slightly. "I was not!"

"I reckon that Gerald's right, Arnold," Stinky said, smiling. "On-account-of you did have a funny-looking smile on your face for a moment there."

"Yeah Arnold," Sid added with his two cents. "You looked just like a total zombie for a second there."

"You were completely spaced out," Curly said as well.

"Come on guys," Arnold said frowning slightly. "It's not like that. I was just thinking about Helga and . . ."

"Helga?" Gerald said, blinking. "You were thinking about Helga G. Pataki!" Then he and the other boys began laughing hard at Arnold, who stood there, his half-lidded eyed narrowed into a look of annoyance.

Harold began to taunt Arnold, singing badly. "Ooohhh! Arnold and Helga sitting in a tree, K-I-S-C . . . um, C-I-S-K . . . uh . . . You love Helga! You love Helga! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!" He laughed loudly and pointed at Arnold.

"Guys, you're starting to annoy me," Arnold said, his voice flat in clear annoyance.

"Hey sorry buddy, we're just having a little fun there," Gerald said, seeing the half-lidded annoyed look on Arnold's face. "But you did have a funny look on your face. Just what were you thinking about Helga anyhow?"

Now Arnold's look of annoyance turned into one of surprise and Arnold felt at a total loss. What had he been thinking about? Did he really have a goofy smile on his face thinking about Helga? If so, then why?

Before Arnold could open his mouth, not really knowing what he would actually say, someone in the school yard began screaming.

Everyone turned and saw Nadine looking at the school in horror, her hands over her mouth, eyes wide. Sheena, who was standing next to her, gasped and pointed at the building. The whole school yard turned and suddenly shouts of alarm and gasps of surprise and terror were heard.

Next to him, Gerald gasped, _"Oh man! Look!"_ Arnold felt his own mouth open in astonishment and surprised fear when he saw what everyone was looking at.

The school building was on fire . . . well, at least, one room on the first floor was.

Principal Wartz office!

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	4. Chapter Three: The Fire In Principal War

**Chapter Three: The Fire in Principal Wartz Office**

Helga heard all of the commotion from behind the dumpster. She quickly put her locket back inside her shirt next to her heart and came out of her hiding place.

She saw everyone looking over at the school building, mixed expressions of shock and terror etched on all of their faces. Several people were shouting with fear and alarm clear in their voices.

"Huh? What's going on?" She asked herself aloud.

Helga turned her head just then to look at the building and instantly a shocked look crossed her face as well. She could feel her mouth drop open and her eyes went as wide as saucers. _Criminy!_ She thought in shock at what she was seeing. Dark smoke, as well as flames, were coming out of the two windows where Principal Wartz office was located.

All of a sudden, another fearful thought came to her mind_, Is anyone in there? Oh my God, where's Arnold!_

Helga looked around frantically and caught sight of his wide head and blonde hair nearby next to Gerald's tall stack of hair. Helga suddenly sighed with relief that her love was okay and her heart pounded hard in her chest. She realized that she'd been holding her breath with worry.

Suddenly, the fire alarm rang out and kids came pouring out of the school. It wasn't anything like the usual fire drills, where the classes came out in neat lines of students. It was sheer pandemonium. Hundreds of students ran out of the building, the smallest and slowest were shoved aside by larger, faster kids running and screaming in terror. Several of the kids were in fact crying, or shaking in hysterical fear.

Teachers appeared to try to take charge and calm the students down unsuccessfully. Among them—to Helga's relief and those of the other students anxiously watching the fire—was Principal Wartz himself, who looked very shaken himself.

A few minutes later, the sound of several different sirens could be heard coming from up the street. Two red fire trucks, a white and red painted ambulance, and a couple of black and white police cars appeared behind the school, their red and blue lights all flashing. The yellow and black-clad firemen with their red hats climbed out of the fire trucks and quickly began to hook up their water hoses to the red painted fire hydrants to fight the fire.

Helga looked over and saw Phoebe, standing behind the rest of the class, looking at the fire, nervous fear was clear on her face. Again relief passed through her as she walked over to join the other fourth graders.

"Oh my goodness, is everyone here?" Mr. Simmons said, rushing right over, looking very upset and anxious. "I better take a head count . . . one . . . two . . . three . . ."

"Hey Phoebe, are you okay?" Helga said to the petite Japanese girl.

Phoebe suddenly jumped in surprise and then turned around, Helga seemed to have appeared out of nowhere behind her. "Helga! Where were you?!" She cried, hugging her tightly around the middle. "I-I didn't know where you were! I thought maybe you were—that you . . ." She couldn't even finish the sentence before her voice broke into sobs.

"Relax Feebs, I'm fine," Helga said, actually hugging Phoebe closer slightly in an effort to provide comfort to her obviously shaken best friend.

Her other classmates turned and saw Helga standing there. Arnold turned and looked over at her and sighed, relief washed over his which body. He let out a deep, relieved breath, which he too had been holding without thinking about it. _Thank God,_ he thought to himself.

"Helga, what happened to you? Nobody knew where you were at." Arnold said to her. Like Phoebe, he seemed somewhat shaken by everything that was happening.

"Criminy, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition?!" Helga said, scowling slightly in annoyance, though deep down she was smiling that Arnold had been worried about her. "Sheesh, I was only over there behind the stupid dumpster."

Arnold looked at her a moment, then blinked and nodded to himself. He knew that Helga liked to be alone sometimes to collect her thoughts and to daydream . . . about him. He shook his head to push that thought aside. It wasn't important to Arnold at the moment, only Helga's safety was.

When he'd seen the fire moments ago, Arnold realized, upon looking around, that Helga was not around. He'd felt a moment of intense fear, almost hysterical panic, for just a moment before Helga suddenly reappeared behind all of them.

By this point, Mr. Simmons was finished counting and was relieved to have everyone accounted for. A minute later Principal Warts walked over and informed him that all the students were accounted for, but that several students suffered bruises and cuts from being trampled by their peers. One girl sustaining a broken arm and a boy suffering a badly cut knee on some glass and a few cases of smoke inhalation. Fortunately, no fatalities were reported.

The fire was put out in a matter of minutes by the firemen. The school building was charred on one side by the two burned out windows on the bottom floor where Principal Wartz office once existed. The fire left black marks on the red brick walls of the school and the smoldered remains of the office itself left a thick, choking smell of smoke throughout the school yard.

"Students, may I have your attention," Principal Wartz voice boomed over a megaphone he was carrying. "Due to the recent and horrible tragedy today, the remainder of your classes today are cancelled. All students are dismissed."

Under normal circumstances, such news would have been greeted with wild, enthusiastic cheers from all of the kids of PS 118; however, there were only a few cheers, mostly just a murmur of talk among several groups of excited and nervous students.

"Well Helga," Rhonda said, looking over at her, "It looks like you lucked out on the detention today."

Helga just shrugged, still too stunned by the events of the past ten minutes to really care. "Yeah, I guess." She glanced up and noticed Cookie and Simone, both standing over by several other sixth-grade girls, looking at the smoldering windows impassively, Cookie blowing that stupid gum of hers with that stupid sneer on her face. Both of them had strange smiles on their faces.

Helga scowled, _Damnit, I guess they don't get any detention either. Smug little . . ._ She shook her head, not wanting to waste any more of her thoughts on those two brats.

She turned to Phoebe, "Come on, Feebs, let go."

"Coming Helga," Phoebe said, and followed her best friend out of the school yard.

A few moments after most of the students left, Principal Wartz and Mr. Simmons were both approached by the Fire Chief and a police sergeant.

"Principal Wartz," the Fire Chief began, "There is no doubt about the cause of the fire. It was arson. Someone set the contents of a trash can on fire near the window curtains with a book of matches we found just outside the room."

"_Arson!"_Wartz said, half-shouting, which caused the other teachers nearby to look over at the commotion. Mr. Simmons gasped in shock. "Oh my, this is very serious! Who would be responsible for something like this?"

The policeman spoke up just then to Principal Wartz. "Sir, have you had any altercations with anyone recently? Anybody who might have a grudge against you?"

Wartz thought for a moment, "No, nothing I can think—oh wait a minute!" A bright light of understanding showed in his eyes. "I gave three girls detention this morning. It was supposed to take place this afternoon."

"I see," the police officer said, jotting that information down onto a small, black-covered notepad.

"Hey Sarge!" Another officer said, rushing over to the first policeman. "We found this near the trash can in the room." He held up a clear plastic evidence bag to the other officer who examined the contents and frowned. He turned then to Principal Wartz and asked, "Does this mean anything to you, sir?" He held up the bag for the principal's inspection.

Wartz eyed the contents of the plastic bag for a moment, and then his face formed an angry scowl. He nodded. "Yes officer, I think we may have found our culprit."

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	5. Chapter Four: Arrested

**Chapter Four: Arrested**

"Hey Phoebe! Helga! Wait up!" A familiar voice called out to the two girls as they made their way in the direction of Phoebe's house. Both of them stopped and turned upon hearing Gerald call out to them to see both him and (Helga's heart skipped a beat) Arnold running up to them.

"Salutations Gerald and Arnold," Phoebe greeted them, smiling shyly at Gerald, a slight twinkle shown in her small, dark brown eyes.

Helga, for her part, simply scowled at the two of them, though not as menacingly as she would have in the hallways at school. Arnold looked over at her and offered his small, friendly smile. His shinny blonde hair was waving slightly in the cool early autumn breeze.

"What do you two dweebs want?" Helga asked, frowning slightly at the two of them in half-hearted annoyance.

"We just wanted to come over and say hello, Helga," Arnold answered, giving Helga a patient sort-of look. Gerald, on the other hand, was scowling at Helga for the comment she made. Phoebe's face remained neutral. "Are you two going home?"

Helga shrugged, "Nothing else to do, _football-head_. What's it to you?"

Arnold rubbed the back of his head, as if he ware slightly nervous about something, then he asked them, "Well, could we maybe walk with you guys? I mean, if that's okay?"

Helga looked at Arnold and blinked. She thought to herself, _oh Arnold; of course you can walk with me! I want to be by your side forever and a day! Walking down the same path of life with you, my darling! My muse! My love!_

Outwardly, she simply shrugged and said, in an indifferent tone, "Whatever blows your kilt up, _hair-boy_."

Gerald, although he disapproved of the way Helga insulted his best friend, had to smile at the look of annoyance that crossed Arnold's face at her verbal shot at Arnold's untucked red plaid shirt sticking out of his green sweater. It was a style that often earned his buddy an accusation of wearing a skirt by some school wits—mostly from Helga herself.

The four nine year olds began to walk together down the street toward Phoebe's house, which was only about six blocks away and the closest. Gerald and Phoebe walked in front while Arnold and Helga walked a few steps behind them.

Both Helga and Arnold watched with some amusement as their best friends began to inch closer to each other and then give each other shy looks. Then, walking just next to each other, Gerald looked over at Phoebe, who was shivering slightly.

"It's a little chilly out here today, huh?"

"Oh yes indeed, its quite cool today," Phoebe said, nodding and smiling, rubbing her hands together. Early October was a really cool time of the year in Hillwood.

Gerald reached out and took Phoebe's small, dainty hands into his own and rubbed them himself. Helga watched in hidden amusement as Phoebe's yellowish face took on a slight reddening that she was sure had nothing to do with the cool air. Then Gerald put his right arm around Phoebe and pulled her close for "warmth." Both of them were smiling and blushing now.

_Man, those two are so obvious,_ Helga thought to herself, almost rolling her eyes.

Then she looked over at Arnold, who had a small, knowing smile on his face as he looked at his best friend and Phoebe sharing another one of their little moments together.

Arnold, feeling her eyes on him, turned to look at Helga, smiling, his half-lidded green eyes shining brightly in amusement. Helga smiled too for a moment and nodded. They both continued to look at each other, inching closer together with every stride . . .

Then a passing car honking at someone brought both of them out of their own little moment.

Almost at once, both of them blinked, realizing what they were doing and looked away quickly, doing their best to pretend that they hadn't been looking at each other a moment before and keeping an arms length from one other.

Helga tried hard to concentrate on her surroundings. The sky was getting cloudy and the wind was blowing the red and orange leaves from the little trees lining the sidewalk. It was so quiet that the sound of the dried leaves crunching beneath their feet could be heard quite clearly. Overhead, large flocks of Canadian geese were flying south for the coming winter, honking as they glided over the tops of the buildings.

She looked back over at Arnold, who again had that far away, thoughtful look in his beautiful green eyes. It was that utter lack of focus that made Helga's heart flutter, and her senses all go wacky. She sighed thoughtfully.

Arnold heard her sighing and smiled slightly to himself, knowing the reason. He cast a sideways glance at Helga, who blinked and faced ahead again. Her shinny light blonde hair and ever-present pink ribbon flowed slightly in the cool autumn breeze. On her face was a very thoughtful, day dreamy sort-of look. It made Arnold stare at her, blinking in amazement.

_She looks so beautiful when she's thinking like that,_ he thought idly to himself. Then blinked again and realized what he'd just told himself, stunned. _Did I . . . did I just think that Helga was beautiful?!_

Arnold concentrated on glancing over at Helga, so much so that he wasn't watching where he was going and walked right into one of those small trees hard, knocking him on his back into a pile of multicolored leaves.

Gerald and Phoebe stopped and looked back to see Arnold laying on his back, covered in leaves, looking up at the cloudy sky, a few dozen more leaves falling on him from the shaken tree.

Helga let out a small, amused chuckle and said, smirking and bending over him, "You really should keep your eyes on the sidewalk, _football-head_." Arnold looked up at her and blushed, embarrassed.

"Arnold? Are you okay there, buddy?" Gerald asked, helping his best friend to his feet again.

"Yeah Gerald, I'm fine," Arnold said, brushing the leaves off of him. One small, red leaf was stuck in his golden blonde hair on the right side. Helga shook her head, smiling slightly to herself. Phoebe looked over at her and shared her amusement.

The four of them began walking again. Gerald and Phoebe now holding hands and Arnold and Helga were following two steps behind them, both too shy and nervous to do anything more than cast sideways glances at each other, though Arnold made sure to watch where he was going this time.

As they turned the corner, Arnold decided to break the silence and ask, "I wonder how that fire in Principal Wartz office got started?"

Helga shrugged, "Who cares, at least we got out of school early and I didn't have to serve that stupid detention." She knew she was downplaying the fear she'd felt from before, but she pushed that aside.

"Come on, Helga, people got hurt today, it's nothing to be flippant about," Arnold said, looking over at her and thinking_, Maybe you could have been hurt._

Helga knew he had a point, but she couldn't stop thinking about the fact that she hadn't deserved that detention for helping Phoebe, or the fact that those two brats Cookie and Simone were off the hook as well.

_Damn it!_ She scowled to herself, kicking a can very hard into the gutter nearby.

Then Arnold added, "You know, I was really worried about you earlier." He looked down as he confessed that.

Helga blinked, forgetting about those two bullies totally and looked over at Arnold, amazed, "Y-You were?" She was too surprised that he just confessed that to care that she just stuttered a little.

"Yeah, I thought maybe you were inside the building when the fire broke out." He told her looking over at her, staring into her large blue eyes.

Both of them stopped in their tracks.

Gerald and Phoebe walked a few more steps when they too stopped, turned and saw their best friends looking at each other with a strange understanding in their eyes.

Arnold continued, "Helga, if anything had happened to you, I . . ." He faltered here.

"Yes Arnold?" She asked, in an almost girlish tone that Gerald didn't recognize as Helga's usual tough girl voice.

The two of them inched closer to one another, Arnold looking up into Helga's beautiful blue eyes, unblinking and Helga looking down at Arnold's bright green eyes, also unblinking.

Gerald blinked amazed at the connection that seemed to take place between Arnold and Helga, his mouth opened slightly. Phoebe, on the other hand, looked at them and smiled beamingly. She looked over at Gerald, chuckled softly and smiled at his look of astonishment.

Arnold was about to tell Helga the rest of his feelings just then, when all of a sudden, a police patrol car pulled up beside them, its red and blue lights flashing. Its siren blared for a moment before the car stopped and two uniformed policemen, one a thin male officer and the other a heavyset female officer, stepped out and walked up to the startled nine year olds.

"Helga Geraldine Pataki?" The male officer asked.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Helga said, frowning at the two of them, her annoyed scowl returned. Both of them just ruined a beautiful moment between her and Arnold. "Why do you wanna know, bucko?"

The female officer put an arm around Helga. "Please walk over to the car and place your hands on the hood." She ordered in a business like tone.

"Huh? What the hell for?" Helga asked, now at a loss.

"Are you carrying any concealed weapons?" The male officer asked her, frowning.

"What? Hey! Keep your hands off of me, you big _cow_!" Helga said struggling as the female officer's grip on her arm tightened.

The two officers then grabbed Helga and placed her against the hood of the car, her hands behind her back and began to handcuff her.

Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe watched on in shock as the officers had to struggle with Helga to handcuff her. Helga shot her foot out, catching the male officer in his left knee, causing him to stagger slightly in pain.

"Hey, you're hurting me! Stop it!" Helga shouted, humiliated and afraid. _What the hell is going on?_ She asked herself, feeling very disoriented.

"You have the right to remain silent . . ." The female officer said, patting her down for any hidden objects. "Anything you say can and will be held against you in court . . ." The female officer's hand paused over her chest slightly and she reached in and, to Helga's horror removed her golden locket and placed it on the top of the patrol car, along with some change and a straw she used to shoot spitballs at Arnold.

"Hey! Leave me alone! What's going on?" Helga shouted, desperately trying to understand what was happening. She felt really sick and nervous on her stomach. The female officer was pressing her against the car to prevent her from moving. The other officer was limping back to the driver's side of the car.

"She's clean, Murphy." The female officer called over to her partner. "No weapons in her possession."

"Officer please!" Arnold said anxiously, walking up to the two policemen, now recovering from the shock of seeing Helga being arrested before his eyes. "What's going on? What did Helga do?"

The female officer turned her eyes to Arnold and said, "She is under arrest for arson, vandalism, and now assaulting a police officer."

"WHAT?!" Helga shouted, causing the female officer to wince slightly since her mouth was close to the woman's ear. "W-Wait a damn minute lady, I didn't do anything! I swear!"

"Well you'll have a chance to explain yourself down at the station." The male officer said.

"There must be some mistake," Arnold said, feeling very faint right now. _Helga arrested! For arson! What's going on here?!_

Suddenly, it came to him. It hit Arnold like a slap in the face. "Wait a minute! Do you think that Helga had something to do with the fire at the school?"

Phoebe's hand went to her mouth as she gasped at the implication, and Gerald's eyebrows rose in indignation.

The female officer ignored them and struggled to put Helga in the back of the patrol car, while the male officer radioed to the station telling them that they had the suspect in custody and were bringing her in.

Arnold tried one more time. "Officer, it wasn't her! It couldn't have been! You have to believe us!"

The female officer scowled at him and said, "Come down to the station and tell it to the magistrate, kid."

The window was rolled down a crack and Helga looked at Arnold, fear and worry showed clearly in her large blue eyes. "Arnold!" She shouted, as the patrol car began to start.

Arnold put a hand against the window and said, "Don't worry Helga, I promise we'll get everything worked out! I won't let them blame you for this!"

Helga looked out at him sadly, almost ready to cry. If her situation hadn't been so stressful, she might have smiled and thought up a poem for Arnold's belief in her character.

Then the patrol car drove off. As it did, Helga's locket, forgotten during the struggle, fell from the top and landed at Arnold's feet in the leaf-filled gutter. Her straw and spare change was spread out all over the road.

Arnold looked down, picked it up absently and saw, with only a small amount of surprise, his picture smiling back at him. Then he looked up and watched the patrol car as it drove downtown to the police station, feeling sadder than he'd ever felt in his life. Behind him Phoebe was leaning against Gerald. She looked ready to cry. Gerald put a comforting arm around her and patted her shoulder gently.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	6. Chapter Five: A Ride From Dr Bliss

**Chapter Five: A Ride from Dr. Bliss**

Dr. Christine Bliss was walking down the steps of the Hillwood Medical Center building heading to her car, a small, glum look on her normally pleasant face. She was too lost in her own thoughts to pay more than momentary attention to the world around her.

It had been a particularly quiet day for her in her office today. No new cases today and the two that she'd been expecting to talk with had to be rescheduled.

She knew that tomorrow would probably be different, however, considering the incident at PS 118 an hour ago. She heard all about it on the radio news earlier. People in the neighborhoods nearby were upset and angry over it. Dr. Bliss felt especially bad for the poor students who went there.

Dr. Bliss was assigned as school district psychologist for that particular school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She knew many of the students there, all of a first name basis.

Fires were especially psychologically, for adults and children alike. A week for now, or maybe even sooner, she knew that she would probably have to expect some visits to her office from some of the students who were suffering from nightmares or more persistent anxieties concerning the fire. Some of these would be scars that might not go away for months, or even years.

She didn't know if any of the students were hurt yet, and she was on her way to go see Principal Wartz to find out.

The moment as Dr. Bliss reached the bottom of the stoop, she bumped into three familiar faces running down the street at top speed . . . literally.

She was knocked to the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps by a short, football-headed little boy, who'd been looking over his shoulder to answer a taller, black boy's question. The football-headed boy fell over on top of her, making the impact with the concrete a bit less comfortable, not that it would have been very comfortable otherwise.

Dr. Bliss looked up to see Arnold, who was starting to get to his feet, being helped up by Gerald and Phoebe who held both of his arms. She got to her feet also, a bit shaken, and slightly bruised, but otherwise okay.

"Hello Arnold," Dr. Bliss said, smiling and regaining her normal attitude for dealing with younger people. She nodded to the others, "Hello Gerald, Phoebe." Deep down, she was relieved to see that these three were okay. She knew them as some of Mr. Simmons fourth grade class.

"Oh, sorry Dr. Bliss," Arnold said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly and looking very preoccupied with something. He looked very anxious and he was looking down the street worried.

"It's quite okay, Arnold," She told him, as she continued to brush herself off, looking slightly puzzled. Then she said to them, "I'm glad to see that you guys are all right. I just heard about the fire at the school on the radio. Is everyone all right?"

Arnold looked at her and Dr. Bliss could see an intense look of concern on his face. "I don't think anyone was hurt too badly, but right now, were trying to get to the police station."

"The police station?" Dr. Bliss blinked and looked at them, confused and now a little worried. "Why are you trying to get there?"

Gerald told her quickly. "The cops just arrested Helga."

Dr. Bliss blinked, surprised. "What?"

Arnold explained, "They said that Helga was the one who set fire to Principal Wartz office earlier today."

Of all the things that she expected them to tell her, Dr. Bliss did not expect that one. Helga Pataki arrested for starting a fire? Helga an arsonist? Dr. Bliss shook her head. Knowing the ten-year-old girl as she did, Dr. Bliss simply could not believe that.

She looked down at the kids and said, "I'm coming with you. We'll take my car."

The three ten year olds didn't argue, just nodded and followed Dr. Bliss to her car, which was parked nearby. The kids all climbed into the back, Gerald on the left, Phoebe in the middle and Arnold on the right.

"Seat belts, kids," she told them, looking back into her rear view mirror to see Gerald comforting Phoebe, who looked like she was ready to cry. Arnold, who just seemed to be looking out the window he was sitting next to, had a tormented look on his normally peaceful face.

Dr. Bliss drove over to the Hillwood City Police Precinct No. 2 Substation on Vine Street, a large, three story brick building which stood adjoined to the Hillwood City Courthouse. She parked outside in the parking lot at one of the visitor spaces and walked into the police station, followed closely by a worried and anxious Arnold, a nervous and shaken Phoebe and Gerald, who tried to remain cool with little success.

The officer at the desk was a large male officer who was reading a paper and munching down on a box of Dolly's Doughnuts with sprinkles.

"Excuse me, officer," Dr. Bliss said, remaining calm and composed, as if dealing with one of her youthful patients. "I'm Dr. Bliss. We're here to see Helga Pataki; I believe that she was brought in recently."

The officer glanced up and frowned, "Oh yes, the little arsonist. She was booked a few minutes ago."

Dr. Bliss frowned as she thought about that, wondering what Helga must be going through at the moment, and what she must be feeling.

"Can we see her?" Arnold asked from behind her, the worry quite clear in his voice.

"Well, the juvenile magistrate will be hearing her case in a few minutes. It's the room on the right at the end of the hallway," he said, pointing a pudgy, sprinkle-covered finger toward a hallway.

Dr. Bliss thanked him and turned toward the magistrate's courtroom.

The three ten-year-olds and Dr. Bliss made their way down a hallway which connected the police station to the adjoining Hillwood City Court House. The Juvenile Court was on the last room to the right of the hallway. It was a smaller courtroom with about six rows of seats on either side of a short isle.

The child psychologist and the three kids made their way to some seats right behind one of the tables where the defendant would sit.

Inside, a hard-faced female judge was looking down at a short, nine year old girl with long brown hair who was standing in front of her bench, her hands cuffed together in front of her, sniffling, obviously crying.

"Miranda Riley, I find that there is sufficient evidence for you to be found guilty of the charge of shoplifting. It is my judgment that you will be sentenced to the Cherry Hill Juvenile Reformatory for Girls, for a term of no less then a year." The sharp, loud bang of the gavel made the girl flinch and begin to cry louder.

"PLEASE!" The girl shouted, "Y-YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I-I DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT WAS IN THOSE BAGS. I SWEAR!" She turned around, eyes red and swollen with tears and ran to two adults (obviously her parents from their likenesses) who were standing and looking on miserably in the isle across from Dr. Bliss and the kids. "MOM! DAD!" She hugged the two adults tightly, shaking and crying in their arms. Her mother cried miserably and her father was also teary-eyed and simply holding them both for comfort, no matter how little it provided.

"Bailiff! Remove her from this courtroom!" The judge ordered to a very large male officer standing near the doorway. He and another skinny male officer led the girl, who was not fighting back, but sobbing miserably, to a door next to the witness stand. Her parents hugged each other and sat down, crying sadly against one another.

Dr. Bliss looked over at the ten year olds to see that they looked as terribly disturbed by that display as she herself felt. _That poor girl_, she thought, wondering what her case had been about in addition to the charges.

She pictured Helga in the same position and it made her heart ache to think of it. More so, she saw that the hard-faced female judge, who Dr. Bliss saw by the nameplate on her desk was one Judge L. Thompson, was not a particularly patient person to deal with. She seemed to have little mercy in dealing with a sobbing young girl accused of a crime of theft. She wondered how the judge would take someone of Helga's demeanor on a more serious charge.

The doors behind them opened again and in came none other than Principal Wartz and Helga's parents Big Bob Pataki and Miriam Pataki, who looked like she was very much disoriented, but not really because of the situation.

Dr. Bliss frowned knowing of Miriam Pataki's habits from the descriptions Helga gave to her in their talks.

The Principal saw her and nodded, "Dr. Bliss? Good to see you again, though I wish it were under much better circumstances."

"Same here, Principal Wartz," she told him, standing up. "Are you okay, sir? I heard all about the fire on the news. Was anyone hurt?"

"Several kids were cut by broken glass and bruised and one girl suffered a broken arm when she was trampled by a stampede of sixth graders, some smoke inhalation cases, but beyond that, things could have been much worse."

"Oh thank goodness," Dr. Bliss said, sighing heavily with relief at the news that nobody was more seriously harmed.

Now Principal Wartz face held an angry scowl to it. "That might be okay, but my office was completely destroyed with all of my papers and my favorite suit! Not to mention that the parents of the kids who got hurt are talking about lawsuits to the school district! The whole city is in an uproar over this and the school board is ready to jump down my throat!" He sighed in clear anxiety over that. "The only conciliation here is that we've caught the culprit responsible and her conviction will go a long way toward satisfying those angry parents."

Big Bob spoke up just then, very angry and irate. "That might be all well and good for you, pal, but I'm gonna be the one who gets sued and maybe lose business over this thing!" He frowned and spoke to Miriam, "This sort-of thing would never have happened with Olga."

Miriam nodded dully and said, "I know, B."

Dr. Bliss frowned and bit back a very angry retort with some effort. Before she could say anything though, someone else beat her to the punch.

"Principal Wartz! Mr. Pataki! Helga didn't set that fire!" Arnold said, standing up from his seat and looking at the adults with a determined look. "She couldn't have done it! S-She wouldn't!"

The adults looked at him. Dr. Bliss smiled at the way Arnold quickly defended Helga's honor. The Patakis were both blinking and giving Arnold a thoughtful look, considering his words.

Principal Wartz however looked at Arnold and said, "Look young man, as much as I wish it didn't have to come to this, there is more than enough evidence against her to prove she did, in fact, set fire to my office."

Dr. Bliss blinked and looked at the angry school principal. She was just about to ask what sort of evidence when the judge spoke up just then.

"Bailiff, send in the next one," Judge Thompson, said to the tall officer to the left next to her desk. The officer spoke into a radio attached to his uniform and the door that the sobbing young girl exited through before reopened and two police officers were bringing a handcuffed Helga into the courtroom.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	7. Chapter Six: Trial In Juvenile Court 1

**Chapter Six: Trial in Juvenile Court (Part One)**

Inside the local district police station office, Helga sat in a small interrogation room with white walls and a large mirror on the far wall to her right. She sat in a folding metal chair at a large metal table which she was handcuffed to by her left wrist facing the only door in the room. A small security camera was pointing down at her from the corner over the doorway, the small red light flashing.

Her wrist hurt slightly as the cuff was tight around it. She could feel the blood in her hand being cut off to her fingers from all of her struggling. Helga scowled up at the video camera and, with her free right hand, made a rather crude gesture to whoever might be monitoring her.

Her mind was still trying to overcome the shock of everything that had happened in the last few hours. She had been enjoying a walk with Arnold and actually having a good time (even given the current situation, thinking about those moments with Arnold made her smile slightly) and then those cops showed up and arrested her.

She frowned angrily and thought to herself, _what's going on here? Why are they accusing me of starting the fire at the school? Criminy, why me?_

Helga felt really alone and worried. The only thing bringing her any comfort to her at all was the memory of Arnold looking at her with such worry on his face and telling her that he wouldn't let them blame her.

The door opened, distracting her from her thought about Arnold, and inside walked a male police detective dressed in a brown suit and sporting a round waist (too many doughnuts was Helga's thought upon seeing him) followed by another police officer, the male officer that she'd kicked when being arrested. The officer gave Helga a dirty look that she returned with an equally nasty scowl.

The officer began to unlock Helga from the table, or rather undo the cuff attached to the table.

"Get up, young lady," the officer said harshly.

Helga stood up frowning at him as he cuffed her other hand in front of her. Together the officers escorted Helga down a hallway to the courthouse building next door where the juvenile court was.

On the way they passed by a brown-haired, freckled girl with red, puffy eyes overflowing with tears being escorted by two police officers. The girl was shaking and looked very lost and distraught. Helga paused to look after the short, thin girl a moment with a small amount of sympathy, before being shoved roughly from behind by one of the male officers.

"Get going, you!" He growled.

The courtroom itself was a rather small room with only a limited number of seats and a jury box next to the thick wooden door that Helga was brought through. The jury box itself was empty at the moment, but there were a few people in the room.

Arnold, Phoebe and Gerald were all sitting in the seats in the front row of the court building, next to Dr. Bliss, Big Bob and Miriam Pataki, who was looking very sadly at her daughter, and Principal Wartz, who frowned at her darkly.

The male officer, along with Principal Warts and the Hillwood City Fire Chief, who'd entered the courtroom a moment before, stood on the other side of Helga.

Arnold blinked and looked at Helga sadly, handcuffed and in police custody, as if he still couldn't believe his eyes. Still his lovely green eyes did tell her something else,_ Helga, I'm here for you._ Phoebe gave her a very sad look almost equal to Arnold's while Gerald also gave her a look of sympathy. Dr. Bliss smiled and gave her a short nod that said, as Arnold look had, _I'm here for you too, Helga._

The hard-faced Judge Thompson looked through her stack of papers, finding the police report and frowned more, making her lips seem even thinner somehow. She looked at Helga over the lenses of her reading glasses with a hard, searching look and seemed to scowl at what she saw. Helga returned that gesture with a hard scowl of her own. The judge's eyes flashed in anger at that defiance.

"Helga Geraldine Pataki," Judge Thompson began harshly pronouncing her name, as if it were something unpleasant on her lips. "You stand before this court on the charge of arson of a public school building and one count resisting arrest. How do you plead to these charges, young lady?"

Helga raised her cuffed hands to her chin, pretending to think and answering in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "Humm, let me really think about that one for a minute, how about . . . NOT GUILTY, YOU MORON!" She said the last part, leaning in toward the judge's bench scowling.

Behind her, she heard Dr. Bliss cough and turned to see both her and Arnold shaking their heads quickly.

The hard-faced female judge frowned more. "You will address me as either 'your honor' or 'ma'am' or I'll find you in contempt, is that understood, Miss. Pataki?"

Helga offered a mocking salute, in which she had to raise both hands because of the cuffs, and answered, "Aye aye, your honor."

Judge Thompson's eyes flashed then and she banged her gavel once again. "You, young lady, are in contempt of my court! One more sarcastic word out of you and you will be gagged for the remainder of these proceedings, is that understood, Miss Pataki?"

Helga frowned and reluctantly nodded offering a small, "Yes." She didn't add 'your honor' or 'ma'am' deliberately, still angry over the whole ordeal. The judge noticed this, but said nothing.

"Excuse me, your honor," Dr. Bliss spoke up then. "May I please approach the bench?"

The judge looked over at her. "And you are?"

"Dr. Christine Bliss, your honor, PS 118 school psychologist. Helga has been coming to me for therapy secessions," Dr. Bliss explained.

"I see," Judge Thompson looked back at her and said, "Are you here on the defendant's behalf I take it?"

"I am, your honor," Dr. Bliss said, looking over at Helga to try and bring her some comfort.

"Me too," Arnold said, speaking up behind her. Helga turned and saw him standing, along with Phoebe and Gerald, who also nodded in agreement. Helga smiled at all of them, they believed in her. Arnold believed in her! That thought alone made Helga swoon and her heart begin beating faster in her chest.

The judge banged on the gavel again, bringing everyone into silence. "Quiet in my courtroom. Now are the arresting officer and Principal Wartz here?"

"I am Principal Wartz, your honor," he introduced himself. The male officer limped forward also, wincing a little.

"Very well, we will proceed with the evidence of this case and determine if there is enough to warrant a trial by jury," Judge Thompson said to them. "Now if we . . ."

Big Bob suddenly spoke up just then, approaching the desk. "Look here, lady, we . . ."

The judge banged the gavel again and scowled at him. "Sir, as I explained before, I am to be addressed as 'your honor' or 'ma'am' in my courtroom, is that understood?"

Big Bob nodded his head and waved his hand impatiently. "Fine, whatever . . . er, your honor."

"Better, now who are you, sir?" She asked, voice biting with impatience at having been interrupted.

"Big Bob Pataki ma'am," he introduced himself, then smiled and produced a small white card from his pocket. "Beeper King, owner and proprietor of Big Bob Beeper Emporium."

Helga rolled her eyes, thinking that Big Bob would probably try to sell beepers during a funeral also. "Criminy," she muttered.

Judge Thompson took the card, looked it over with a raised eyebrow and said, "Er, right. I take it you're the defendant's father?"

"You're darn tootin I am, your honor," Big Bob said to her. "Look, I don't know why they think my daughter Olga set that fire . . ."

"Its Helga dad," She groaned under her breath, rolling her eyes.

He continued, ". . . but she is a good girl. She's a Pataki your honor and we Pataki's are not criminals or lawbreakers!" Ironically, Helga wondered if Big Bob would be sworn in on that one, but didn't say it out loud.

Big Bob continued, "I want to get this thing over with and go home. Is there any way this can hurry all of this along?"

Judge Thompson regarded the question a moment, then she nodded. "The only way that can be done is for your daughter to wave her right to a jury trial and hold a hearing at this time based upon the evidence. If I find that there is sufficient evidence that the defendant committed the act in question, I can impose summary judgment on her and sentence her. However, since there would no doubt be an appeal, I would see fit to allow one at the nearest available time . . ." She checked her papers "Two months from this date."

Behind her, Helga heard Dr. Bliss, Arnold, Phoebe and Gerald stir at that. Helga didn't like the sound of that at all and she could tell that Dr. Bliss didn't either.

Dr. Bliss spoke up, "What is the alternative, your honor?"

The judge looked at Dr. Bliss and said, "The alternative, Dr. Bliss, under the charges that the defendant is accused of, would be for her to remain in State custody till a trial by jury can be set . . ." Again she checks her papers "Three months from now."

"Three months!" Helga said in indignation. "You've got to be kidding me! Look here lady; I did not set that fire! I am not going to stay locked up for three months! That's not fair!"

Judge Thompson again banged on her gavel. "Young lady, those are your best options. The decision is yours. We can listen to the evidence against you now and maybe you can be released, if you can account for it. Or you can spend three months in juvenile detention, until a jury trial can be set up."

The judge leaned forward and looked Helga right in the eyes. "The decision is yours, Miss Pataki, think carefully before you answer and tell me which it's going to be."

Helga looked over at Dr. Bliss, who looked at Helga with a worried expression. Behind her, Arnold was looking at her, a mixture of worry and hopeful optimism on his face. Phoebe and Gerald were looking at her; both of them had unsure and worried expressions on their faces. Big Bob gave Helga an impatient look. Miriam gave her a worried glance.

It was up to her, challenge Principal Wartz's so-called proof of her guilt and risk two months in Juvie, or spend three months there waiting on a proper trial?

No contest.

Helga knew she was innocent and that they had nothing on her. Further, she was angry and Helga did what she always did best, faced her problems head on.

"I wanna get outta here! Let's get this over with!" She said to the judge.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_

_Writer's Note: I am not an expert of Juvenile Justice or the system, please don't flame me for any missing details. –D.R. _


	8. Chapter Seven: Trial In Juvenile Court 2

**Chapter Seven: Trial in Juvenile Court (Part Two)**

Judge Thompson sighed and said, "Very well." She took a sip of water from a glass on her left and banged on her gavel once. Then she said, "Principal Wartz, you may present your case."

Principal Wartz coughed a little, clearing his throat and said, "Thank you, your honor." He walked across the front of the courtroom in an almost comical parody of a trial lawyer, putting his thumbs inside his pants pockets and pacing slowly as he pompously began his case against Helga.

"I intend to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt to you, that the defendant, Miss Helga Pataki, did willfully and intentionally set fire to my office, destroying all my school files and my best suit, not to mention endangering the lives of many of her classmates and fellow students. I also intend to show that she had the motive and the opportunity. There is also physical evidence linking Miss Pataki to the scene of the crime, verified by myself and the fire marshal, as well as eyewitness accounts of these events in question. All of which I will submit to this court, with your permission, your honor."

The judge nodded and said, "You may present your evidence, Principal Wartz."

He nodded, "Thank you, ma'am. I would like to call Miss Rhonda Wellington Lloyd to the stand."

Judge Thompson looked up to the doorway and nodded to the officer there. That policeman opened the door and muttered to someone out in the hallway. Then Rhonda entered the courtroom, looking very nervous. Helga blinked at her, as did Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe. Dr. Bliss remained calm.

Rhonda glanced at them a moment before she sat down in the chair next to the judge's desk, looking very nervous to be there. She took the oath given to her by the bailiff and waited to be asked her questions.

"Now then, Miss Lloyd," Principal Wartz began, adopting his usual principal stance, his head held high and his hands clasped behind his back, pacing in front of the witness stand. "Where were you just before the fire in my office started?"

Rhonda cleared her throat. "I was on the playground with my best friend, Nadine, and the rest of the class talking to the other girls. We started off talking about those tacky pumps that Katrina Jorkins from the fifth grade class wore today. You know those awful shoes with the . . ."

"Miss Lloyd," Principal Wartz said cutting her off abruptly. "Let's try to stay on the subject here. You're here to talk to this court about a crime."

Rhonda snorted and raised her right eyebrow, crossing her arms in front of her chest, "What do you think I was doing? Those shoes _were_ a crime!"

Helga snorted and snickered a little. Arnold, Gerald, Phoebe and Dr. Bliss all smiled slightly at the impatient look that crossed Principal Wartz face then. Judge Thompson seemed even less amused.

"Well, let's talk about the_ other_ crime, all right, Miss Lloyd?" He paused to clear his throat. "Now then, was the accused, Miss Pataki there?"

Rhonda nodded, "Yes sir, she was angry. She kept fussing and complaining about the punishment you gave her for after school, thought it wasn't fair."

Principal Wartz nodded, "I see. Did she say anything that sounded like a verbal threat?"

Rhonda looked over at Helga. "Helga makes comments all the time, so I wouldn't have really paid them any mind usually. But after the fire I remembered one particular thing that she said, it was really bad."

Principal Wartz smiled slightly, "And what was it that the defendant said, if I may ask?"

Rhonda looked over at Principal Wartz and answered, "She said, 'Just wait until later, I'm going to make sure that Wartz is sorry he ever gave Helga G. Pataki detention.'"

Behind her Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe all winced, remembering that Helga did, in fact, utter those words on the playground.

Wartz nodded, "I see." He glanced over at Helga who looked at little guilty just then. She remembered uttering those words in the heat of the moment. She glanced over at Judge Thompson who was looking at her very gravely now.

"Did anyone else hear her say that, Miss Lloyd?" Principal Wartz said.

"Most of the class was there. All of the girls and most of the boys." Rhonda said nodding.

"And can you account for the defendant's whereabouts just prior to the fire in my office?" He asked her.

Rhonda shook her head, "No sir, Principal Wartz."

"Thank you, Miss Lloyd. Nothing further from the witness, your honor." Principal Wartz said turning away.

Judge Thompson looked over at Dr. Bliss. "Would you like to ask the witness any questions, Dr. Bliss?"

Dr. Bliss stood up and said, "Just one, your honor." She looked over at Rhonda and asked her politely, "Now Rhonda did you actually see Helga start the fire in the principal's office?"

Rhonda shook her head, "No, Dr. Bliss. We were all outside."

Dr. Bliss nodded and smiled. "Thank you Rhonda. Nothing further your honor."

Judge Thompson looked at Rhonda. "You are excused, Miss Lloyd." Rhonda stood up and glanced over at Helga once more, blinking at the sight of her classmate in handcuffs. Then she left, glancing back slightly before the doors closed behind her.

Principal Wartz stood over at a table and held up a file folder with Helga's name on it. "Your honor, Miss Lloyd's testimony showed that the defendant, Miss Pataki, was very angry over the punishment given to her for her repeated acts of juvenile delinquency. Indeed today's detention, had it occurred, would have been her fifth this year for striking another student."

He walked over with the file to the judge's desk. "I have here, one of my backup files, detailing the accounts of the defendant's misbehavior in school. It shows a pattern of anti-social behavior toward other students in particular. The girl is a hard case your honor. The records in there clearly show someone whom I believe has the mentality to commit the crime in question."

Dr. Bliss stood up then, a cross look was on her face. "With respect your honor, Helga is not a 'hard case' as Principal Wartz put it."

She walked over next to Helga and said, "Those files may show a girl who is somewhat troubled, crying out for attention, but doing so in the wrong manner obviously. Still, what they do not show is a girl who is very intelligent and who has unique ways of expressing her feelings through written words."

Behind Helga, Arnold blinked, slightly surprised. _Helga, a writer?_

He remembered what she'd told him on top of the FTI building months ago, about how she filled out volumes of poetry about him. He also knew that Helga was, despite her tomboyish behavior and tough-girl attitude, a very smart girl. She'd won most spelling bees as well as other academic contests and got good marks in class. Maybe not as good as Phoebe (who was the hardest working in the class, if not the whole school) but Helga was still very much up there.

Dr. Bliss continued, "Your honor, Helga was first assigned to me for counseling therapy after one of the aforementioned incidents involving another student. The person I found was not a severely hardened and angry preteen, but rather a shy and somewhat lonely person, who uses her aggressive tendencies to hide those facts."

Gerald looked more than a little bewildered by this. Helga was not what he would have called shy at all. Phoebe only nodded a little. Arnold looked at Helga and nodded to himself. That explained a lot, though he himself suspected it deep down for quite a long time.

Judge Thompson looked through the file and her eyebrows came together. "Humm, so many fights and confrontations." She glanced at Helga and then to Dr. Bliss. "There is definitely a pattern of bad behavior here. However, at the moment, I find nothing that I would attribute to an arsonist."

Helga and the other kids behind her breathed a small sigh of relief. Dr. Bliss knew this wasn't over yet, but felt a small measure of hope deep down.

Judge Thompson looked over at Principal Wartz and asked, "Do you have any further evidence that connects the defendant to the crime itself?"

He nodded, "I do indeed, your honor." Wartz went back to the table and produced another item, a small bulging brown folder. "To verify this evidence, I would like to call the defendant, Miss Pataki, to the stand."

The judge looked over at Helga and said, "Please stake the stand, Miss. Pataki. I must tell you now that you are not obligated, in any way, to testify at all, or answer any questions against your will, or say anything that may serve to incriminate you. Do you understand?"

Helga brushed the advice off, "Yeah, yeah," she shrugged and looked over at Principal Wartz. "Bring it on Wartz; I ain't got nothing to hide!"

Arnold thought Helga should take it easy and try to not get carried away. From the looks on their faces, Dr. Bliss and Phoebe agreed. Gerald watched, shaking his head at Helga's attitude.

The bailiff administered the oath to Helga. "I do," she said, nodding to the bailiff.

"You may proceed, Principal Wartz," Judge Thompson told him, nodding.

Principal Wartz walked over to her, his eyes almost looking right through her as if trying to find the nonexistent guilt. He cleared his throat and began. "Now then, young lady, can you account for your whereabouts at the time of the fire in my office?"

Helga thought about that and said, "I was sitting behind the dumpster near the back of the playground."

"And what pray tell were you doing back there, if I may ask?" He asked her, clearly not believing her.

Helga glanced over at Arnold, realizing that she couldn't say exactly what she was doing without giving away her secret to several people, not to mention to the boy she obsessed over.

She fumbled a little, saying, "Er, I was . . . um, thinking about stuff. Yes that's it." She said it all a bit quickly.

"I see," the principal said, smirking a little. "And did anyone else see you, um, 'thinking about stuff'?'" He used quotations with his fingers the same way Mr. Simmons did in class, only in a more sarcastic manner.

Helga thought about Brainy, and the note he'd left. She scowled, perfect time for the little geek to take a trip. She shook her head, "No."

Wartz smiled, "Aha! Then you admit having no credible alibi at the time of the fire?"

Helga frowned and looked at him, "Listen pal, I told you that I didn't start any fire! I don't know what makes you so sure that I did, but I am telling you now that I didn't, bucko! I was nowhere near your office and there is no way you can prove otherwise!"

Principal Wartz offered a small smile to Helga just then, as if he now had her right where he wanted her. Then he removed two small plastic bags from the folder he carried.

"Your honor, I would like to enter these items into evidence as 'Exhibit A' and 'Exhibit B' they were found at the scene of the fire, in my office. The Fire Marshal can verify that fact." He produced the first item "Exhibit A" and held it out to Helga. "Do you recognize this item, Miss Pataki?"

Helga blinked and could do nothing but stare for a moment, her eyes widening in surprise. It was her library card. It was a little singed and melted on one side, most likely because of damage done to it in the fire, but her name was still legible along with her picture scowling back at her visibly.

"Y-yeah, that's my library card," she said stammering and still looking at it, somewhat stunned.

At her reaction to the evidence, Principal Warts smiled more, "It was found right next to the trash can where the fire marshal confirmed the fire began, along with these." He held up the other plastic bag "Exhibit B" which was a used book of matches with a red cover.

Dr. Bliss blinked, as did Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe.

Big Bob squinted then walked over looking at the bag. "Wait a minute, what the heck? Those are some of the matches from my store! We have them at the desk in a bowl, free for customers. It even has the company name on them!"

Dr. Bliss wished that Big Bob had been quiet about that fact as it could prove a bit devastating to Helga's case.

Warts nodded, "So I noticed when I looked at them." He handed the judge the evidence. The match box clearly bore the inscription "Big Bob's Beeper Emporium" as well as the address below.

Absently, Big Bob snatched his card back from Judge Thompson's desk rather quickly.

Judge Thompson looked over at Helga, that hard probing look in her eyes again. "Do you have anything to say about this evidence young lady?"

Helga shook her head, the shock wearing off. "Look here, I-I don't know how those got there, but I did not put them there!" She looked panicked now by the looks on Principal Wartz, and Judge Thompson's faces. "Y-you have to believe me!"

"What I believe, Miss Pataki, is that you were angry over another detention in my office, because you thought I was being unreasonable," Principal Wartz said, counting off the facts on his right hand. "You threatened to exact revenge, as verified by one of your classmates. You have no credible alibi for the time of the fire. Evidence was found belonging to you, placing you at the scene of the crime. You had the motive, the opportunity, and in my opinion, the mentality to commit such a heinous act of juvenile delinquency!"

He turned to the judge, "Your honor, there is nothing further to say, except to say that actions will have to be taken soon. There is a virtual firestorm of media attention over this incident already. We need to put this behind us quickly and the best way to do that is to put the arsonist in question behind bars." He pointed at Helga as he said the last part, adding a final dramatic touch.

Helga stood up angry, glaring at Principal Wartz and shouted, "I DIDN'T SET THAT DAMNED FIRE!"

The judge angrily banged her gavel, "That is enough, young lady!"

Dr. Bliss walked over and put an arm on her shoulder, "Helga, please, this wont help matters." Helga looked at her and then over at Arnold, who also seemed to be asking her to stay calm with his eyes.

Judge Thompson sighed and looked at Helga. "Helga Geraldine Pataki, I find that there is sufficient evidence to convict you of the crime of arson."

"What?!" Helga said, shocked, feeling as if someone just made her swallow an ice cube that settled cold in her stomach. "B-but you can't! I didn't do it! I swear!"

Dr. Bliss, Arnold, Phoebe and Gerald all looked as shaken as Helga felt. This couldn't be happening!

Judge Thompson looked at Helga and said, "Until your appeal in court, which I will set in two months from this date, you will be reprimanded to the Cherry Hill Juvenile Reformatory for Girls."

Arnold felt the color drain from his face. Next to him he heard Phoebe let out a choked sob. Gerald offered her what little comfort he could.

Dr. Bliss tried to appeal to the judge. "But your honor, the evidence against her is entirely circumstantial. Surely confinement until her trial is not the answer here?"

Judge Thompson looked at Dr. Bliss. "Principal Wartz is quite correct about the impact this will have on the community. Miss Pataki will remain in State custody, as much for her own protection, until the appeal."

Dr. Bliss was worried about the effect that Juvenile Hall would have for someone as sensitive as Helga. Despite the claim of protection, it didn't sound like a good answer to her at all. Unfortunately, there was other viable alternative.

Judge Thompson declared, "This judgment stands." Then she banged her gavel loudly, sounding like a gunshot echoing in the deathly quiet courtroom. "Bailiffs, take the defendant into custody."

Dr. Bliss looked over at her, "Don't worry Helga, I promise to keep checking on you. We'll try to get you out of this somehow."

Big Bob called out to her also. "Don't worry girl, we'll get a lawyer and straighten all this out!"

Helga barely heard any of them, lost in the confusion of her thoughts and anxieties. This was like a nightmare! She felt the bailiffs grab her upper arms and lead her to the door back to the confinement area of the jail.

Before she left, she glanced over at her friends. Phoebe was crying hard and Gerald was patting her back in sympathy. Arnold looked over at her and their eyes meet across the room.

It was when she looked at Arnold that she truly felt the first rush of the magnitude of this sentence. She would be parted from him for at least two months . . . and if she lost the appeal . . .

Helga locked eyes with him and said, "I swear, I didn't do it!"

Arnold's green, half-lidded eyes looked at her with such worry and sorrow—all for her—that she only barely heard him say in, a tight emotional voice, "I believe you Helga."

Helga was carried away through the door.

That last sad look directed at Arnold was almost enough to make Arnold cry himself the way Phoebe was. He felt so bad for her. Arnold reached into his pocket and looked at the locket with his picture in it and he felt something deep down catch. He'd promised that he would help her, but he didn't know what to do.

For once, Arnold was at a total loss . . . _Helga!_

The heartbroken boy whispered, clutching the locket in his hand tightly and lowering his head, "I promise Helga, I'll prove you didn't do this somehow. Whatever it takes, I'll do it."

Behind him, Big Bob muttered to Miriam, "This never would have happened to Olga."

Miriam sighed dully and muttered, "I need a smoothie."

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	9. Chapter Eight: Miranda Riley And A Nigh

_Warning for All Readers of My Fanfic!__  
__Starting here, the subject matter of this story will begin to get slightly dark and filled with more mature language and subject matter . . . most of what occurs in the following chapters from this point on is based on accounts from books, movies, and real life dealing with the subject of prison and juvenile detention in general. If anyone is offended or shocked by this stuff, then I am truly sorry. But I hope you will see that what Helga will have to endure will ultimately make her a stronger person by the end of this story and make all of you feel the need for the true culprits and villains to get exactly what is coming to them.__ -D.R._

**Chapter Eight: Miranda Riley and a Night in Lock Up**

Shortly after the miserable ordeal in court, Helga was taken to the back of the jail to be fingerprinted and photographed like a common criminal.

Helga was still in a state of shock. The harsh sound of the judge's gavel slamming down upon her sentence still rang in her ears. She felt as if her stomach were completely empty.

_This can't be happening to me,_ she thought to herself in disbelief as her fingers were placed one by one onto an ink pad and roughly rolled over an ID sheet by a scowling male police officer who told her harshly, "Don't struggle!"

Then she was photographed. Helga scowled into the camera and resisted a strong urge to stick her tongue out, as the all too bright flash from the camera left dark spots in front of her eyes.

She was then taken to the back of the jail, where a metal door was opened by a security lock which buzzed as the door was opened. There she was led down a short, narrow hallway next to a holding cell full of boys. These were all rough-looking thugs of all ages, juvenile delinquents everyone. Upon seeing Helga, all of them began to whistle and clap while some of them began calling out nasty and suggestive comments about her and what they would love to do with, or to her. Helga did her best not to shake and she stayed as close to the far wall away from the bars holding the goons as she cold manage, though they were well out of arms reach of her.

Suddenly, Helga felt something warm and sticky hit her neck and she gagged a little, knowing she'd just been spat on. Some of the delinquents laughed hard.

The holding cell for female juveniles was at the end of the short hallway where another security door and a cement wall separated them from the male juveniles. The door was opened—again with a loud buzzer—and Helga was led inside. Only then were her hands finally uncuffed. She rubbed her wrists trying to get the circulation back into them. Then the barred door to the detention cell was opened and she was forced in. The iron bars closed and locked behind her, sending a chill up her spine.

Helga glanced around at her cell mates, trying not to stare longer than necessary to take them all in. There were about a dozen of them. Most of them were older, hard-faced girls, several of whom looked as tough as Big Patty and about as thick frame wise. These were standing in groups of two or three apart from one another. One, standing alone near the front of the cell, looked like a hardened veteran of the system, with wide, crazy eyes that looked right through Helga.

Some of them were looking at the new arrival, checking her over, like they were sizing her up. She scowled trying her best to look as tough as possible.

In the hallways and playground of PS 118, she had the reputation of a person who often settled arguments and altercations with her ever-ready fists. The image she'd built up upon since her first day of preschool was that of a tough girl whom most kids, if they were smart, did as she told them, or at least tried to stay out of her way. Those kids had known that Helga G. Pataki was nobody to mess with.

Of course, these tough girls did not know any of this.

In this holding cell, Helga realized that she was just a skinny blonde girl, with a pink bow and dress—not particularly intimidating to girls who were probably already career criminals and _real_ hard cases. She felt tense and tried to ignore these thoughts and walked to the back of the cell.

The few benches which lined the holding cell were already occupied and Helga knew better to believe that the ones in them would let her join them. So she sat next to the corner where the poor brown haired freckled girl from earlier sat with her back against the wall, her face buried in her folded arms.

"Hey, this seat taken, toots?" Helga asked harshly, trying to sound a little tough for the benefit of the rest of the inmates in the holding cell. She also said it in a way that said that no was not an answer she was going to accept, knowing full well that polite manners were not going to serve her in this situation.

The girl looked up at her, with eyes that were still red and puffy. She looked so small and vulnerable that she reminded Helga briefly of a non-oriental version of Phoebe. She was shaking terribly, looking at Helga with wide, worried eyes. "N-no," the girl muttered, shaking her head and moving over a bit so that she sat right next to the corner of the cell.

Helga nodded and sat down on the cold cement, leaning her back against the wall, which also felt cold. There was a vent nearby that seemed to blow out air that was not exactly hot, but room temperature. She rested the back of her head against the wall, looking up at the gray ceiling and the nearby wall, also painted gray, which was covered in graffiti, some of which were boys phone numbers and names, along with nasty limericks or crude drawings that made Helga blink a little.

Next to her, the young girl began to cry softly, her head buried in her arms.

"Somebody shut that bitch up," came the muttered words of an angry twelve year old, who was lying on the floor next to the far wall, with her arm over her face to block out the light of the bright bulbs in the hallway. There were a few muttered words in agreement with the sleepy prisoner. Some of these sounded dangerously annoyed.

Helga whispered to her, "You better be quiet, or they might give you a really good reason to cry." The girl looked at her worried and glanced at the hostile stares that were thrown their way. She wiped her eyes and made an effort to control herself.

"Okay ladies, listen up," came the voice of a husky female guard on duty just outside. "The van from Cherry Hill will be picking you up early tomorrow, so you better try and get some sleep after chow."

Another guard brought in several trays of beans and wheat bread with a slab of ham and metal spoons for each inmate. Helga took hers and another for the freckled girl and brought them back to their spot. The girl thanked her and took the extra tray and spoon.

Only upon sitting down did she realize, to her horror, that the only place to use the bathroom was sitting in the other corner and had absolutely no manner of privacy at all. It didn't look particularly clean either. She decided it was best to not drink anything until they were moved tomorrow and offered the same advice to the girl who went wide-eyed and nodded.

"Names Helga by the way, Helga Pataki," she said introducing herself.

The girl seemed to relax a little. "Miranda Riley," she muttered.

Helga looked at the girl and asked, "What are you in here for?" She knew it sounded clichéd, but what the heck, right?

Miranda looked down at her tray and muttered, "Shoplifting." Then she added quickly, "B-but I didn't do it. My boyfriend—well I thought he was my boyfriend, took me to the mall complex downtown a couple of nights ago and said he was going to pick up a few things. I didn't know he meant that literally. He stole some CDs, but when the security people came over, he shoved a bag full of merchandise into my hands and took off. They arrested me and here I am."

Helga looked at her sympathetically. Some no good jerk literally left her holding the bag. That _was_ cruel. It also occurred to her mind that Miranda could just be telling her that to gain some sympathy. But Helga looked into those sad eyes and could see the truth for herself.

"I'm sorry." She told the girl, meaning it. Love was something that Helga felt strongly about. She couldn't even imagine Arnold doing something like that to her, ever.

The memory of Arnold looking at her sadly as she was being led away and whispering, "I believe you Helga" came rushing to her and she felt a pang of loss as her hand went to the place where her locket used to be, only to find it missing.

_Oh Arnold, my Arnold,_ she thought to herself._Thank you for believing in my innocence my little angel._

"What about you?" Miranda asked her, looking her over curiously.

"Arson of a school principal's office," she said simply, then added, "But I didn't do it either."

If Miranda Riley believed her or disbelieved her, she didn't say. She looked at her and turned back to her tray.

Helga, being very hungry, took no time finishing her tray before setting it near the bars with Miranda's tray and the spoons for the guards to take away later. When she returned, Miranda muttered, "Thank you." Helga simply nodded.

The lights dimmed only slightly in the hallway. The blinking red light from the security camera on the ceiling across the hallway blinked brighter. There were no lights in the holding cell. "Okay ladies, goodnight," the guard said sarcastically.

Several of the inmates called out crude remarks, but went to trying to make themselves as comfortable as they could manage under the circumstances. Miranda Riley lay on her back next to the corner and turned facing the wall, not saying anything more. Helga figured that she must have a whole lot on her mind.

Helga leaned her head back against the wall again and closed her eyes.

Sleep came very slowly to her, both from the uncomfortable position she'd chosen but mostly because the memories of the recent day all came back to her in a rush. Waking up that morning and listening to Bob griping about something she hadn't paid attention to in the first place . . . walking to school with Phoebe . . . the way Helga got in trouble protecting Phoebe from Cookie and Simone . . . that terrible fire that broke out and the ensuing panic . . . the moment she and Arnold shared (that part made her heart skip momentarily, till she recalled how it ended) . . . her humiliating arrest and conviction in juvenile court. It all happened so fast and remembering it was so overwhelming that a couple of tears fell from Helga's eyes.

She buried her head in her arms and, like Miranda Riley had before, cried softly.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	10. Part 9: Welcome To Cherry Hell

**Chapter Nine: Welcome to "Cherry Hell"**

Early the next morning, Helga was awakened by the sound of a large female officer banging on the iron bars with a baton and shouting to them all to get to their feet and get their breakfast.

Said breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs and toast with some very greasy bacon, none of which was flavored very well, nor were they offered any condiments of any sort. Indeed they were not even given any utensil sharper than the same sort of metal spoons from the night before.

After their brief breakfast, several male and female guards appeared at the door of the cell and began to call out two sets of names. Helga watched as the first two girls they called were cuffed together and moved to the large metal doorway on the end of the hallway.

"Pataki! Riley!" The large female officer called out, looking over a clipboard.

Helga and Miranda, both nervously walked over to the cell door where they were cuffed together as well. Miranda's left arm was cuffed to Helga's right arm. Together they were led to the doorway next to the other already cuffed inmates. Helga saw that one of the twelve year olds they were standing behind had a small heart tattoo on her back shoulder surrounded by barbed wire, with the name _Jeremy_ in the middle in black letters.

"Okay, move to the end of the hallway," a male guard called as the door was opened to reveal another short hallway and another, already opened doorway.

Helga and Miranda followed behind the other girls down the short hallway and out the door to a small yard securely fenced in by a barbed wire topped gate and cyclone fencing. It was still dark outside, and cold, several flood lights lit up the whole yard.

An old rusted bus with peeling blue and white paint and the words: HILLWOOD JUVENILE CORRECTIONS printed in faded red letters under the windows on the side of the van sat waiting in the middle of this yard. Its doors opened and two more tough-looking female guards in brown uniforms came out of it to standing watch.

The prisoners were led inside the bus. The back areas of the bus were fenced off from the first pair of seats and driver's seat, no doubt separating the prisoners from the guards. There were five sets of double seats in the back of the bus, five on each side. Helga and Miranda walked past the fence through the small door and sat in a seat second from the front, with Helga sitting next to the left window. It also had heavy mesh wiring over it to prevent anyone from jumping out.

The bus was soon loaded, the two tough-looking female guards came back on and sat down near the front watching the human cargo with hard eyes through the safety of the fencing. The van began to move. Outside the gate slowly opened and the bus rolled through it and turned right onto the dark street.

Helga watched out the window as the bus soon turned down a familiar street toward Arnold's neighborhood. It passed Vetello's Flower Shop and Green Meats, and then finally past the Sunset Arms Boarding House was in view. The windows—even those on Arnold's room near the top of the fire escape—were all dark; its occupants all probably still asleep and dreaming sweet dreams. She knew it was very early and that her chances of seeing Arnold were slim to none.

Helga put her free left hand up to the wire-covered window as the bus passed by. "Arnold," she whispered softly to herself, remembering the look on Arnold's face when he'd put his hand up to the window of the police car the day before. Helga kept her eyes on that boarding house till it was out of her sight. Then she closed her eyes a moment and sighed sadly.

Miranda Riley glanced over at Helga and asked softly, "Do you know someone who lives there?"

Helga nodded a little, turning away from the window sadly. "Just a boy, I know," she said quietly. _A boy that I love more than life itself . . . short, kind of geeky and kind-of stupid yet amazing boy with a really big heart but no sense of reality, who is among the few people who think there's more to me than just a mean, scowling bully and that I am not an arsonist! _She thought to herself.

Miranda nodded and then asked, "Your boyfriend?"

Helga blinked and scowled, "What? N-No are you kidding, sheesh!" Miranda blinked at the outburst, but said nothing and looked down at her feet, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully.

"No talking back there!" One of the female guards yelled out in a gruff-sounding voice. They were all silent the rest of the way.

Helga watched out the window as the sun slowly began to rise over in the east, the darkness outside began to slowly give way to a cloudy early morning. The street lights outside began to dim and cut off automatically. It looked gray outside and it was cold in the bus. Helga covered herself as much as she could with her pink coat.

Outside the bus crossed over the iron bridge to the peninsula and passed by the open fields, now turning brown in the Indian summer weather. Brown and golden leaves still hung stubbornly on some of the trees outside as they drove on, the city of Hillwood disappearing over the horizon. Soon, they crossed over another bridge and passed several factories and mills which were running less than full. It was getting close to quitting time for those poor souls working the graveyard shift and almost work time for those on the morning shift.

The bus traveled on a little farther, past some densely wooded area for some time until the trees disappeared and they came within sight of a large group of gray and red brick buildings with a round, light-blue painted rusty water tower that was surrounded by two fences set on an open hillside. The outer fence was taller and both fences were topped with rows of barbed wire.

They turned off the main road and then up another road on the right, which led along the large, wire-topped fence, and came to a couple of gates. As the bus paused, Helga looked at the brick and weather-worn bronzed sign out on the corner. It read:

**CHERRY HILL JUVENILE REFORMATORY FOR GIRLS**

**EST. 1930**

Below this was engraved the quote: _"Justice with Mercy and Love."_

Graffiti written in dark, red letters covered the word "Hill" on which was written the word: _**HELL.**_

One of the officers spoke into a walkie-talkie, "Code one, transport has arrived."

The bus made its way slowly up to the large fence with the barbed wire where two gates opened at the same time. The bus turned left past the double gates and a small red brick guard building and moved on a little way down a small road lined on both side with small trees and turned off to the left on another road with a sign that read: **DROP OFF.** The bus then arrived in front of a large, three story red brick building with the same, diamond-shaped mesh wire fencing placed over the bottom floor windows, and large door, where it stopped.

Waiting there was a tall, tough-looking, horse-faced woman, who wore the same brown uniform as the guards accompanying them. She looked like she must be the head guard. She had dark eyes that stared at each of the girls climbing awkwardly out of the bus, with a very intimidating glare. The girls were all lined up next to their cuffed partners, facing the building and the horse-faced guard. Two other hard-faced guards stood on either side of her in front of the stairs leading up to the front door.

"Welcome to Cherry Hill, ladies. My name is Guard Foster," she informed them. "You will call me 'Miss. Foster' or 'Ma'am' while you are here ladies, is that understood?"

There were a few mutters of "Yes Ma'am."

Miss Foster continued, "You are to be processed and then assigned to your dorm. Once you are there, your supervisors will instruct you on the procedures and rules here. Do not disregard any of them, believe me, you don't want to be brought to my attention for any reason. I hope that is very clear to you ladies."

Foster stared at them hard, her eyes darting to Helga, who looked up at her, meeting her gaze. She frowned at Helga then turned to the guards behind her. "Take them to admissions and process them."

The guards both nodded and turned to them. One of them said, "Follow me and no talking in line."

The girls were marched in a row into the building down a hallway past several offices to a set of large blue-painted iron doors labeled:**ADMISSIONS** in white letters. A security buzzer sounded as the secured door was opened and the girls were led into a large, dimly lit brick room with several brown cardboard boxes and a set of black markers were set on the floor along with each of them. Inside the room were two inmates wearing faded blue prison clothes made of jean cloth, with numbers painted in white on the right breast pockets. These two inmates were both very tall and intimidating looking. Both of them were smirking at the new arrivals and looked at Helga and Miranda with particular interest. They were both older, maybe twelve or thirteen.

The new arrivals were uncuffed from each other and one of the guards carried the cuffs away. Helga rubbed her wrist frowning.

The female officer that stayed with them in was a heavyset, mean-looking woman with short, dirty blonde hair and hard gray eyes. She had a terrible smirk on her face then, as if she were about to enjoy something others would find very unpleasant. It was a look that made Helga uneasy.

"Okay ladies, I want all of you to strip down and put everything into one of the boxes on the floor in front of you." The prissy smirk on her face grew wider and her gray eyes flashed, "And I mean everything!"

Helga suddenly felt very sick to her stomach. She'd always been a particularly modest person. Next to her, Miranda Riley blushed badly, a really scared look crossing her face. The other girls shifted uneasily.

"NOW! MOVE IT!" The guard shouted at them, impatiently.

Helga took a breath and began to undress. The other girls did so also, the older ones less hesitantly. Several of them were old enough to have on training bras, one twelve year old, the one with the tattoo from before, even seemed to be well endowed enough to have already fully developed breasts. As she removed her own pink jumper and white shirt, Helga tried not to look at nor stare at the others, making an effort to keep her eyes down on the cement floor, or up at the paint peeling ceiling. She took another breath as she dropped her underwear and tossed them into the box along with her clothes. The room felt uncomfortably cold, her bare feet freezing against the cool concrete floor.

The older of the two inmates walked over to Helga and stood right next to her. Helga glanced at her. She was large and dark-haired with dark mean-looking eyes and also had a unibrow like her. She scowled at her and said, hissing in her ear, "The pink ribbon too, Blondie."

Helga didn't really want to give up her bow also, but she knew better than to argue the point. She reached up and untied the ribbon slowly—too slowly in fact. The inmate grabbed the bow impatiently and pulled it—along with some of Helga's golden hair—from her head and tossed it onto the box. Helga bit down the yell she so badly wanted to shout and stared at the floor, her eyes turning red with unshed, pain-filled tears and barely held in anger.

"That's right _bitch_, you better not eyeball me," the inmate hissed in Helga's ear, the smugness clear in her voice.

Helga glanced over at the box, avoiding the gaze of the nasty older girl, which she knew was still on her. Looking down at her pink ribbon in the box, she felt a small sense of loss as one of the last things that reminded her of her life back in Hillwood with Arnold and everyone else was removed from her by force.

"Miss Walker!" The other inmate shouted from the other side of the room.

The guard looked up, "What is it, Pena?"

"This one was trying to hide this!" The inmate said, holding up what looked like a small charm bracelet with little silver and gold things hanging on from it.

The heavy set guard walked over to the scared-looking sixth grader in the front of the line, a cold look on her terrible face.

"P-Please ma'am!" The girl cried sadly, looking over at the bracelet. "My boyfriend got me that for my birthday last—

"Quiet you!" The guard shouted, sneering at the girl, who was desperately trying to cover her nude body. She was shaking badly. The inmate next to Helga smirked, as if knowing something very unpleasant was about to occur and would not be entirely disappointed to witness it.

"Well, let's find out if you're hiding anything else shall we?" The guard grabbed the girl by the arm and took her to the front of the room where they would all see it. She had a very wicked smile on her face as she did so. "Get against the wall and spread em you!" She said, removing a pair of rubber gloves from her pocket as the unfortunate girl cried. Many of the girls turned their heads away.

A sudden burst of terror filled Helga as she realized what was about to happen and quickly turned her head just before the unfortunate girl uttered in a high-pitched voice, "NO! PLEASE DON'T!" Then a loud wailing scream followed by loud sobbing filled the confined room. Helga shut her eyes tightly as if she were the subject of that particular violation. Her insides tightened and she trembled slightly. Beside her, she heard Miranda gasp, she sounded about as shaken as Helga felt. She prayed that the guard wouldn't do the same to her as well.

Finally, she heard the guard say, "Get back in line you!" Helga opened her eyes to see the girl, her face red and sobbing very hard, moving slowly back to the front of the line. The guard then looked at them, smiling nastily, removing the gloves. "I have no problem giving medical searches to each and every one of you! Now, does anyone else feel like trying to sneak anything in?"

Almost at once, two other inmates tossed some items in the box. Helga knew this from the sound, not looking at them.

The guard smirked, "I thought not. Now, I want you to write your names on the boxes with the markers at your feet and toss them into the box also." Helga did this very quickly, trying to avoid doing anything to tick off the guard.

"Now, in a single file line, walk into the other room and take a seat in the chairs," the guard—Miss Walker—told them as the older trustee opened another door. They walked in, cold and shivering from their state of undress and from the terrible ordeal a moment ago. Thankfully, the huge guard did not follow them in this room.

They entered another dimly lit room with several chairs and some older prisoners standing there with a couple of guards watching on. They had scissors and electric shears in their hands.

Helga felt sick as she sat down naked on the cold hard chair and waited there while her pigtails were being roughly cut off by an older inmate. Most of the girls were crying softly as their long locks of hair were cut off to a shorter style for their new status as inmates. Helga felt yet another sense of loss as she saw her golden blonde hair fall into the floor next to her chair into a pile of Miranda Riley's own brown hair.

"When you're done, go into the next room to be cleaned and deloused," the guard ordered.

Helga stood up and was escorted by a guard to the next room. She was led into a small cubicle near the wall where a couple of showers of mercifully warm water were running. She was given a bar of red, foul-smelling soap, which Helga guessed had to do with killing lice and washed herself off quickly. When she was done, she was told to stand next to the wall and another inmate muttered, "Close your mouth and hold your breath" before she began to spray Helga down with what her nose told her was bug spray. "Turn." She did so and the process was repeated on her backside as well.

The last room on this tour thought the bowels of hell was a supply room where another older inmate looked her over and handed her a bundle of blue prison clothes, white underwear with a gray tank top and worn-looking dirty white shoes, which she was thankful to take. She was ordered by the guard to get dressed quickly. While the tank top and underwear were new, the prison clothes were far from new, but they were clean and oddly comfortable. The shoes had Velcro straps rather than shoe strings.

She joined the other girls who'd gone before her against the far wall. They all looked different with their hair cut short and wearing State issued prison clothes. Helga wondered what she now looked like and if she would even recognize who she was when or if she got the chance to see a mirror.

Miranda Riley was among the last to finish. She came in the room looking very different with her hair cut. She looked at Helga sadly and stood next to her, turning her gaze to the floor. Helga felt like offering her some comforting words, though she herself felt the same way.

Before she could however, the nasty guard from earlier, Miss Walker came back in and walked up to them. Facing them and said sarcastically, "My my, don't you ladies look much prettier." The two sneering inmates from before snickered behind her. The guard glanced at them and they quickly went silent.

Miss Walker then looked back at the new arrivals. "When I call out your names, I will call out your numbers. You _will_ remember them at all times."

She looked at the papers on the clipboard she was given. "Bland 0707. Grant 0708. Jackson 0709. Laurens 0710. Massey 0711. Pataki 0712. Riley 0713. And Simpson 0714." The older prisoners walked over to them with markers and wrote their numbers crudely on their right shirt pockets with white paint pens.

Helga looked ahead as hers was being written, trying not to stare. As she did so, the prisoner writing her number—one who didn't seem to be like the two with the guard—muttered sadly to Helga, "Welcome to_'Cherry Hell'_ kid."

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	11. Part 10: A Warm Greeting In Dorm C

**Chapter Ten: A Warm Greeting in Dorm C **

The new arrivals were then led into a hallway, holding in their arms a second bundle of their inmate clothing and a small kit with toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and a roll of toilet tissue. They were told to line up with their backs against the wall.

A thin, tall young woman appeared from the nearby wooden doorway marked: **Admissions Office.** She was hard-faced just like the guards, blonde haired with dark blue eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses. Unlike the guards, she wore no uniform. She was clad in a white blouse and regular black dress pants.

The woman walked up and down the line, looking at each of the girls in the eyes. She too frowned when she came to Helga and meet defiant eyes, and then continued with her inspection. Finally, she finished and walked back over to the office door and faced them.

"Welcome to Cherry Hill, ladies," the woman began in a stern voice. "My name is Jolene Harris. I'm the head administrator of this facility. You will call me 'Miss Harris' or 'Ma'am' at all times."

"You have all been assigned to Dorm C for the remainder of your stay here with us. Your fellow inmates are all juvenile delinquents and social detectives, just like yourselves. Some of them are violent offenders, serving time for armed robbery, assault, arson, and even manslaughter." She paused to let them take those facts in.

Helga felt her knees go weak at the thought of sharing two months—let alone a possible year or two—with convicted offenders like that. Next to her, Miranda looked very pale and scared.

Miss Harris continued, "In here everybody is the same . . . and I mean everybody. You will be treated with respect if you treat others with respect. I suggest you stay on your best behavior and follow the rules. Your crime isn't that you got caught, but the crime itself. Remember that, ladies."

She glanced into Helga's eyes which flashed defiantly at the injustice of being lectured to her about crimes she did not commit. Miss Harris met Helga's defiance with a frown and a slight hardening of her eyes.

"Hopefully, you'll all realize that what you did was wrong and never do anything like that again. Do your time cleanly and you may be rewarded with early release provided you complete your rehabilitation. This is a juvenile correctional facility that means you are not the ones in charge here, we are."

Miss Walker smirked at them from behind Miss Harris, as if daring any of them to argue with that. None of them did.

"If you think your cool, you're not," Miss Harris continued. "If you were, you wouldn't be here. Have I made myself understood?"

There were a few mutters of "yes." She frowned and, raising her voice slightly, not yelling but making herself understood none-the-less, said, "Yes, _Miss Harris_."

The girls, including Helga, all said, "Yes Miss Harris" with a bit more conviction.

"That's better," she nodded, but still looking at them sternly. "This way ladies."

She turned and led them single-file down the dimly-lit hallway, with Miss Walker behind them. They went up a flight of stairs, which Helga saw had cyclone fencing closing off the central shaft, and down another dimly-lit hallway on the next floor. They went through a set of bars, which Miss Walker unlocked with a key on a large key ring, and further down to a secure metal door. The words:** Dorm C** was painted in dull white paint on the blue painted door.

The door was opened with another key and they were ushered inside to a small confined office-like room, with a desk and a small television bricked off on two sides then caged off with more cyclone fencing from a larger, two story gymnasium-sized dorm room. Another guard sat in there, watching them walk in.

Dorm C had two levels of individual blue-painted doors, some opened and some closed with windows of wire mesh instead of glass. The vast room was lit by over a dozen overhead gym lights with a narrow central skylight between them and several windows near the end of the walkways of the second level (these also had fencing covering them). There were some soda machines, as well as a pool table and a paddle-ball table set to the right side of the caged off administration area. On the left side was and an old television set with several long wooden benches set up in front of it. Three round tables with plastic chairs lined the middle of the vast room. An open doorway stood in the very back of the dorm, probably the restroom.

Jammed into this area were what looked like about a hundred inmates, ages eight to fourteen, many of which were standing around in several large groups near the back, smoking cigarettes, while some were enjoying the few activities made out to them. Some of them turned to see the new arrivals; all of them looked very menacing and tough.

Helga shuttered, knowing that she wasn't going to look forward to meeting any of them. Next to her, Miranda Riley looked terrified.

Miss Harris turned and said, "Miss Walker, they're all yours. Go over the rules and procedures with them." She turned back to the new arrivals and said, "Enjoy your rehabilitation ladies." With that she left them alone with the sadistic Miss Walker.

She sneered at them and said, in her gruff-sounding voice, "Okay ladies, I'm only going to say this once, so we better listen up. The rules are simple: no fighting, no gang activity, no sexual harassment, no running for the fence, no drugs or alcohol. You will be required to attend mandatory classes every afternoon starting tomorrow to continue your education, different classes everyday, one hour a day. You will have mandatory work details to complete everyday, which will be assigned by your dorm's trustees." She smirked over at the two inmates from earlier, who were now standing on the other side of the fence with the other inmates. The older one nodded to the guard, while the other sarcastically blew a kiss at the inmates.

Miss Walker continued, "You'll be issued one roll of toilet paper a week, if you lose it, then tough. There are three counts a day, miss one and you will spend the remainder of the day in solitary confinement and receive a black mark on your record. Good behavior will earn you privileges such as phone calls, and bad behavior will earn you nothing but trouble."

She looked hard at them, "Two more things to remember, ladies. Number one, my name is Miss Walker, and number two . . ." She looked very threateningly at them just then and said, "We never screw around with me. Are we understood?"

The frightened girls all nodded, including Helga.

Miss Walker smirked and nodded, now sounding very pleased, "Good." She looked at the clipboard given to her by the other guard, "Here are your new living arrangements." She began to call out their names and assign them their room numbers. When she got to "Pataki, number 14 on the bottom; Riley, number 22 on the bottom; Simpson, number 30 on the top," she stopped to scowl at them once more and said, with perverse amusement, "Enjoy your stay with us ladies."

She pushed a red button on a panel and, with the now familiar electronic buzz, the fenced door to the dorm was opened. "Inside," Walker said, jerking her head toward it. "Move it!" Helga and the other new inmates walked through the gate into the dorm.

Inside the inmates all gathered around them, whistling and muttering very ugly things, the same way the boy juveniles back at the jail had with Helga. Only his was much worse. Here there were no bars to separate her from the other inmates. The inmates began to clap loudly in a rhythm and toss paper at them.

"New Cherries!" One called out.

"Can't wait to pop em," another said, in a cruel-sounding way.

"Aww ain't they cute?" A third one asked sarcastically. "I want the short one!"

"They're gonna wish their daddies hadn't meet their mommies when were done with em," yet another sarcastically said.

"You'se in hell now, shrimps!" Another in the back declared.

Helga and the others walked between two rows of them while they tossed paper-wads, blew cigarette smoke, spat loogies on, and verbally abused them as they make their ways to their assigned rooms. Miranda Riley broke out into a run in fear and was tripped up by an inmate who then kicked the poor girl as she was down. Then she was roughly picked up and shoved toward the room. Helga, for her part, kept up a steady pace, mentally telling herself not to react as a cow-faced inmate blew foul, lung-choking cigarette smoke in her face and another spat on her shirt.

After what seemed like a very long walk (which was only a legitimate twenty-six paces from the supervisor's station) Helga, shuddering and trying hard not to break out into a run as poor Miranda had, finally made it to her assigned room and shut the door behind her. The sound of the others being jeered at and taunted continued to echo in the main room. The hoots and rhythmic clapping continued for several more minutes. The door did have glass with some fencing wire outside of it, and was cracked slightly.

Helga stood there, trembling in humiliation and fear, spit dripping off of her face, smelling of cigarette smoke and bug spray, which was itching underneath her prison uniform, and surveyed the room.

The room itself was about a fourth the size of her room at home and, like the dorm itself, was painted a grayish-blue. It had two bunks to the right of the door facing the back, a stack of shelves on the left, a small heating unit next to them and a small desk with a reading lamp and a single wooden chair set up in the back. A single lightbulb lit the room, which was in a small caged covering in the middle of the ceiling and had no cord to cut it on or off.

Helga wasn't alone.

Inside the room, seated at the desk facing the right side of the room next to the heating unit was a thin, freckled-faced girl with red hair and glasses like Phoebe's. She looked to Helga like she was about her age—ten or so, but still shorter and about as thin as Helga herself.

The girl faced Helga, amusement shown in her green eyes, which looked Helga over in one quick glance.

"You must be my new roomie," she said in a harsh, Northern Yankee accent, smiling. "How ya like Cherry Hell so far?"

Helga looked at her and frowned a little, then glanced over at the bunks.

"The top one is mine, so don't get any funny ideas kid," the redhead told her as she began to remove an open pack of cigarettes from her shirt pocket.

Helga sat down on the bottom bunk, setting her prison issued items next to her. A set of sheets and a pillow seemed to have been already provided.

"I knew I'd be getting some company when they issued em," the redhead told her, as if picking up on what Helga was thinking. She lit a cigarette. "I made the bed for you by the way. Figured you'd be having too much on your mind to do it yourself. Good to have company again. Been without a cellmate for a month now. Last girl in here with me killed herself by drinking a whole bottle of some disinfectant."

Helga didn't know what chilled her more, the story itself, or the casual, almost emotionless way the redhead told of her last cellmate's fate.

The redhead seemed to notice this too and said, "Look kiddo, sorry if I don't sound too broke up over it, but forming attachments in here ain't always for the best, you know." She stood up and tossed a towel to Helga.

"Thanks," Helga muttered, taking the towel and wiping off the drying spit.

"So, you _can_ talk," the inmate said, smiling a silly-looking grin now. "Name's O'Feir by the way. Shannon O'Feir, but most people around here just call me 'Trashmouth.'" The girl offered her a hand.

Helga took it, "Helga G. Pataki."

"What's the 'G' stand for?" Trashmouth O'Feir asked.

Helga scowled a little, "None of your beeswax, _bucko_!"

Trashmouth smirked and then laughed a little. "Fair enough I guess. Now, tell me, was you the one who got the medical search?"

Helga flinched remembering the loud, wailing scream of the unfortunate girl who was forcefully searched inside by the terrible Miss Walker.

"No," she said simply.

"But someone did, right?" The redhead prompted. Helga nodded, trying not to think about it.

Trashmouth simply said, "Someone always gets one, trying to sneak something inside. Walker can't search you like that unless she has a justifiable reason, and someone has to be made an example of at first. Try to stay out of her way; she ain't a nice woman to deal."

Helga frowned and muttered sarcastically, "Gee, I didn't notice."

Trashmouth looked at Helga and said, "Word travels fast around here, Pataki. You're the firebug right? Set your school principal's office on fire. I gotta tell you, I'm impressed." She smiled at Helga with what she could see was genuine admiration.

Helga looked at her and said, annoyed and upset, "But I didn't do it! I'm innocent!"

Trashmouth looked at her and said, giggling and shaking her head, "You're gonna to fit in good around here, girl. Everyone's innocent in this joint."

Helga glanced at the floor then nervously asked Trashmouth, "So, what are you in here for then?"

"Me? I'm also a firebug," she said, taking a puff of her cigarette. "About a year ago, there was this creep who was messing with this friend of mine, Annie. He used to beat on her, then he decided to beat up on me too, asshole," she muttered the last word; her eyes hardened a moment from the memory. Then she continued, "So that night, I tossed a rag and a Yahoo Soda bottle full of motor oil through his bedroom window and burned the whole place down while he was out with his parents. Of course, I wasn't planning on torching the whole place. Actually, I wasn't planning on waiting till the bastard was gone either." She sighed and shrugged. "Oh well, he never bothered my friend again anyhow. Moved away last I heard tell."

Helga looked at her. This girl, a real juvenile delinquent, just confessed to committing a real crime to her, with little or no remorse, except for not being able to finish the job.

_Oh well, _a voice in her thoughts spoke up. _You did ask her, Helga, ole girl._

"So, how long do they got ya here for?" Trashmouth asked her.

"Well, I was given summary judgment till my appeal. Two months or so at any rate," Helga said, looking at the floor. _Two months? In this place? It is nightmare even possible? _The reality of it all seemed to come crashing down on her again hard.

Trashmouth only nodded, "A month can seem like a year in here Pataki. No matter what the supervisors call it, this is hard time. That's why they call it Cherry Hell."

Helga continued to look at the floor, examining a crack. Her only thought—other than worry about her immediate future—was to think,_I wonder how Arnold and Phoebe are holding up without me? _

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	12. Part 11: Arnold's Ordeal And Phoebe's En...

**Chapter Eleven: Arnold's Ordeal and Phoebe's Encounter**

At the exact moment Helga had been thinking of him, Arnold had been thinking of her as well.

Indeed, Arnold had been thinking of Helga almost every moment since the hearing, and that last moment he'd seen her being hauled away in handcuffs, pleading with everyone to believe in her innocence.

He'd gone home that evening, not really eating much of his dinner and laid back on his bed looking up through his skylight at the dark cloudy sky, holding up the locket with his picture in it.

Helga's locket.

Arnold had, of course, opened it up to see the inscription engraved on the inside:

_Arnold my soul you're always in my heart._

_Love, Helga G. Pataki._

He'd read and reread the inscription dozens of times, each time feeling the loss of the girl who loved him so more and more. The girl who'd kept him so close in her heart all this time. The girl who confessed her love to him months ago when they saved the neighborhood. Arnold thought about their last moments together before her arrest, of the thing he'd wanted to tell her.

He remembered how he'd been so worried for her when that fire broke out at school and he didn't know where she'd gone. For that brief instant, Arnold felt that stab of cold fear in his heart worse than anything he'd ever felt before. He knew that if Helga had been hurt in that fire or worse yet, killed, that he would never have been able to get over it. That was what Arnold wanted to tell her that he knew beyond any doubt at that moment how he felt about her deep down.

Arnold knew that, despite the entire tough girl attitude and the scowling demeanor, deep down Helga was an okay person. No, a better than okay person. She was a beautiful person. An amazing person even.

He knew that she loved him . . . and he knew that he cared about her a lot. Well, maybe more slightly more than a lot. Arnold had been unsure then if he actually loved her back and had been about to find out when she'd been arrested.

Now, Arnold had another fear to deal with. Helga, the girl that he now kept close in his own heart, was now a ward of the State. A prisoner in a juvenile reformatory, surrounded by social misfits and real bullies; criminals and sociopaths of all kinds.

That being the case, Arnold barely got several hours worth of honest sleep the whole night.

Arnold opened the door, waiting a moment as his pig, Abner, and about a dozen dogs and cats raced by his feet before he stepped out onto his stoop. It was cloudy and cool outside. The wind blew through his blonde hair.

Gerald stood waiting for him at the bottom of the stoop as usual. He looked up at his best friend and made a small observation, "Man, Arnold! You look terrible!"

Arnold looked at him and said, "I didn't really get a whole lot of sleep last night, Gerald." Gerald only nodded in understanding and sympathy and the two of them began walking to the bus stop together.

Gerald glanced over at Arnold and said, "I still can't believe it man. I mean, Helga, in juvie." He shook his head. "I know that Helga isn't always the nicest person or the easiest in the world to get along with, but that is just way too harsh."

Arnold looked over at Gerald and asked, "So, you believe she's innocent too?"

Gerald blinked and then said, "Of course I do, man. I mean, Helga can be really nasty sometimes, but there's no way she's an arsonist."

While Arnold found himself frowning at Gerald's observation of Helga being "really nasty sometimes" (despite the fact that, he too, thought the same thing on occasion) he was glad that Helga had another person who believed in her innocence. He was very pleased with his best friend.

"I wonder how she's doing right now." Arnold thought aloud to himself.

Gerald looked at the ground a little, kicking a stray can on the sidewalk into the nearby gutter. He seemed to be thinking about something very carefully. "I heard stories about what goes on in Cherry Hill. My man, Fuzzy Slippers, he knew some sisters on the inside before. He says it's a nightmare for new inmates. The long timers call the place 'Cherry Hell.' He said that new inmates are treated very badly in there by the long timers."

Arnold flinched involuntarily at the thought of Helga in a place like that.

Gerald looked over at Arnold and suddenly felt very stupid, "Oh man, I am so sorry! Look, I didn't mean to . . . I was just saying what I heard."

His football-headed buddy simply shook his head. "Its okay, Gerald. I just hope that Helga will be okay in there until her appeal."

Gerald could tell that Arnold was saying that more to convince himself. "Hey man, this is Helga G. Pataki we're talking about. She's one tough cookie. She can take care of herself, Arnold."

Arnold's gaze seemed to lose its focus in that thoughtful way Gerald knew all too well. "I know, Gerald. But . . . I'm still worried." He sighed.

Gerald could see how worried Arnold was for her, though the thought still surprised him a little. He was having a hard time dealing with the recent connection between Arnold and Helga. Mostly because he could recall all of the semi-cruel pranks and humiliating names he'd endured over the years at the hands of the pigtailed bully.

Yet, somehow, he could also see that both of them were warming up to each other more and more. They seemed to have this connection ever since they saved the neighborhood months ago. Gerald never asked why, despite his curiosity. He knew that if Arnold wanted to tell him, he would in his own time. Till then, Gerald would support his buddy no matter how strange it all seemed to him.

Ironically, although he and Helga had never been on more than somewhat tolerable terms before, Gerald also felt worried about her and about how Phoebe must be feeling right now that her best friend was locked away in juvenile hall.

They arrived at the bus stop in little time and climbed aboard the already waiting bus. The driver closed the door and then began to roll down the street toward PS 118.

"Well, anyway, like I said, Principal Wartz called me up to testify," the voice of Rhonda Lloyd from near the back of the bus. Arnold and Gerald looked up to see Rhonda, Nadine, Sheena, Stinky, Sid, Harold, and Curly all sitting together in the last few seats talking. Rhonda, as usual, was holding court.

Rhonda continued, "Anyway, they had Helga handcuffed. She looked really guilty. Arnold, Gerald, Phoebe and Doctor Bliss were there also."

"My dad read in the paper how she was taken into custody yesterday after school was dismissed," Sid said, picking up where Rhonda left off.

"Hey look, there's Arnold and Gerald!" Sheena said, noticing them first. Almost immediately, everyone's attention turned to them and the two boys were bombarded with questions.

"Hey guys, what happened?" Nadine asked.

"Did Helga cry?" Stinky asked.

"Did she punch one of the guards?" Curly asked, grinning and looking hopefully for a yes answer.

"What did the judge give her?" Rhonda asked.

"Whoa! Hey! Settle down now everyone!" Gerald said, raising his hands up to silence the demanding crowd of kids. "I'll tell you all what happened, just give my man here some room, okay?"

Arnold and Gerald sat across the isle from Rhonda and Nadine. Harold and Stinky were in front of the girls and Curly, Sheena and Harold were in the former "geek seats" at the very back just behind them. Arnold sat closer to the window.

Gerald told them what happened, how Principal Wartz called Helga to the stand and presented his evidence, how Helga was found guilty and sentenced to a year in Cherry Hill. Everyone had their mouths opened widely, looks of stunned disbelief on all of their faces.

"Garsh," Stinky said quietly. "That really bites!"

Rhonda snorted, "Serves Helga right!"

Everyone looked at her; and Arnold stared at her in shock and disbelief.

She continued, "Setting that fire like that, she could have really hurt someone bad!"

Sid nodded, "I heard one girl got her arm broke. Helga really went too far this time!"

The others began to nod and mutter in unison, all of them seemed to be sure of Helga's guilt.

It was too much for Arnold. He stood up and glared at all of them, anger set in his half-lidded green eyes and he said, "Helga didn't do it!"

They looked at him, some of them blinking in disbelief that Arnold, of all people, would speak up for Helga G. Pataki.

Rhonda looked at him with her hands on her hips and snorted, "Oh come on Arnold, you heard the evidence! Her library card, those matches, she was not seen before the fire, and she threatened Principal Wartz on the playground! We all heard her!"

Arnold stood his ground, "I know all that! I know it looks bad, but there's no way Helga would do something like this! She wouldn't!"

Harold looked at Arnold. "Oh yeah? Why wouldn't she, Ar-nuld!"

He blinked and said, "B-because . . . look she just wouldn't okay? Look, I know Helga has done a lot of bad things over the years, gotten into a lot of fights, and been really mean, but she's still our friend and she deserves the benefit of the doubt! She said she didn't set that fire and I believe her!"

"Me too," Gerald said, backing up his best friend. Arnold smiled slightly in gratitude.

The others all looked at them, then at each other, and then went back to muttering about Helga's guilt, ignoring Arnold's words. Arnold and Gerald sighed to themselves. Their classmates could be very fickle when it came to what to believe.

Arnold sat back down glumly and looked out the window at the passing streets and sidewalks. They were just passing the spot where he'd run into that tree yesterday.

_Yesterday,_ thought Arnold, with a little gloom. _Yesterday we were all happy. Me and Helga and Gerald and Phoebe were all walking together happily, talking and just enjoying being together. And then all this happens. Why? Can someone tell me?_

He felt the small bulge in his jacket. Arnold's hand went over the small, heart-shaped golden locket and his pocket. He sighed to himself.

Gerald looked at his friend worried about him and wondered how Phoebe was holding up today.

* * *

At PS 118, Phoebe was struggling with her locker with little success. She was having a very hard time concentrating.

Last night had been a terrible ordeal for her. She'd cried for most of the night over the thought of Helga, her best friend, incarcerated in a juvenile correctional facility.

Like Arnold, Phoebe knew that Helga was more than a mean, scowling bully on the inside. The Helga she knew was a good friend and a wonderful person hiding under a mask of indifference and annoyance.

Phoebe was mostly afraid of what might happen to her surrounded by and exposed to the type of girls sent to a place like Cherry Hill. Violent criminal offenders and bullies who made the likes of Big Patty look like Mary Poppins by comparison. She was afraid for Helga, stuck in a place like that for too long. Afraid that the good part of her soul, her spirit, as well as her physical body, could be hurt irreparably in that horrible place.

She then wondered how Arnold was dealing with all of this.

Phoebe could tell, through her own observations that things between Arnold and Helga were slowly progressing very well. They were becoming much closer friends than before, possibly more than just that. There were those shy glances they'd shared in the halls recently and several, all too brief moments, both on the playground the other day and during their walk home.

She knew that Gerald could see it too. She also knew that Gerald was quite surprised, even slightly shocked by the idea of anything going on between their two best friends. Phoebe felt a little surprise herself at these recent developments. Mostly happiness for Helga because she'd been lonely for so long and now was showing signs of taking the steps necessary to find the peace she denied herself for so long with her usual bullying ways.

The fact that, if Arnold and Helga got together, she and Gerald would also have more time together also entered her mind a few times as well, causing a small shy smile to cross her face on these occasions.

Yesterday, they were all together. Happy and carefree, sharing time together. Four friends, two couples—well unofficial couples technically, but still . . .

"Hello Phoebe," said a mocking and sarcastic voice from behind which forced Phoebe out of her thoughts and worries. Now new worries came to her as she recognized that voice. Phoebe turned and felt her stomach twist and knot up in fear.

Cookie and Simone were standing over her, small wicked smiles on their faces, their eyes shining brightly with utter malice. Cookie smacked her gum loudly. Phoebe backed up into her locker door, worried, her eyes wide. Cookie and Simone had her pinned against it, blocking all of her avenues of escape. The two older girls towered over her menacingly.

"Aww, what's the matter, geek?" Simone asked, sarcastically. "Miss your nasty little bitch of a friend?"

Cookie snickered as she smacked her gum, "Yeah, you don't look so smug now without your ugly little pal to hide behind, do you?"

Phoebe frowned at them. How dare they insult Helga while she wasn't here to defend herself? She tried to push past them, only to have them shove her back into her locker. Her head bounced on the back of it, leaving a sore place. "Ow that hurts!" she cried out in pain. Spots started to appear before her eyes.

Simone looked eye to eye with Phoebe, an evil sort-of knowledge shown through them. She grabbed Phoebe by the shirt and pulled her close to her, her perfume made Phoebe's allergies uncomfortable.

"Without your little friend Pataki around to save you, we're going to have a lot of quality time together,_ bitch_." The sixth grader threatened, spittle hit her face leaving small wet spots on her glasses.

Phoebe felt fear going right to the pit of her stomach. The two bullies snickered to themselves, knowing that they had the upper hand. "W-What do you w-want?" She stammered in terror, afraid of what these two might do to her.

Cookie smirked, "You can start by giving us all your money."

Phoebe blinked, "B-But that's my lunch mon- OW!" She cried out again as Simone began to squeeze her arm tightly and twist it behind her back. "No! Please NO!" She cried more, afraid that they'd break her arm. "I-I'll do it! Just, please . . . d-don't hurt me!"

Simone released her and Phoebe quickly handed over her money, rubbing her arm, which hurt badly. "That's smart of you, Heyerdahl," she said, smugly. "From now on, you're going to give us your lunch money every day."

Cookie frowned, "And you better not breathe a word of this to anyone, or believe me we'll do a whole lot worse than break your arm." Simone smirked evilly and added, "See you later, Phoebe." The bullies walked off, laughing to themselves and splitting their ill-gotten gains.

Phoebe simply slid down her locker onto the floor, shaking badly and crying softly in pain, humiliation and fear all at once. She stayed that way for a while.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	13. Part 12: First Work Assignment

**Chapter Twelve: First Work Assignment**

A loud buzzer sounded, making Helga jump slightly.

Trashmouth simply sighed and muttered, "Work detail; come on Pataki, time for us to earn our money."

"We get money?" Helga asked dubiously, raising her eyebrow.

"Well, we actually earn tokens for the pop machines anyhow. Not much, but then again we don't get too much anyhow," the redhead explained as she stood up. "Come on, time to get counted."

Helga stood and followed her out to the main dorm where two rows of inmates were being lined up by the two large inmates from before. Miranda was being shoved roughly into line by the larger one who'd pulled Helga's ribbon off her head. Apparently the smaller girl hadn't moved fast enough for the hateful bully.

Trashmouth nodded as they got in line next to Miranda Riley, who seemed grateful to see a familiar face. Her small smile again reminded Helga slightly of Phoebe. Helga introduced Riley to Trashmouth, who simply said, "Pleasure. I see you two have already meet Bowers and her little bitch Pena."

Apparently Trashmouth made no effort at all to keep her voice down, which attracted Pena, who walked over and gave her a hard look, before removing the cigarette from her mouth and blowing evil-smelling tobacco smoke in her face. Trashmouth tried not to cough as she smirked back. Pena walked off.

Seeing this, Helga suddenly had a good idea how Shannon O'Feir earned the nicknamed "Trashmouth."

"Those two tramps are the barn bitches around here. They keep the other animals in line and hand out the work assignments." She explained to them. "Watch out for em. Pena was busted and put in here for dealing crystal-meth. Bowers killed her baby brother, rat poison in his bottle. Real beauties aren't they?" Helga felt sick to her stomach and Miranda looked pale at the news.

Bowers, the larger of the two head inmates looked back at Miss Walker, who was behind the fencing sitting at the desk. "All accounted for Miss Walker!"

Walker's voice appeared over the PA system, "Very well, proceed with passing out work assignments."

Bowers smiled and looked down at the roll sheet and called out assignments. Trashmouth O'Feir and Miranda Riley were both given laundry detail.

Bowers looked at Helga, a wicked smirk crossing her face. "Pataki, you have shit house duty. Report to the front and get your supplies." Her friend Pena snickered.

Helga frowned as she walked up to the desk, where Walker sat, frowning at her disdainfully. Helga was then issued a mop and a bucket, along with a toilet plunger and a bottle of bleach. She was then led by the two older girls to the bathroom at the back of the cellblock dorm.

Her first sight of the bathroom made Helga's stomach turn and her face grimace in disgust.

It was a large room that had ten toilets—six against the far wall and four against the wall to the right of the door—all of which were stainless steel and looked cold. She could see all of them very clearly because the wooden, graffiti-covered stalls they were in had no doors on them. Two of them were occupied at the moment. There were also two long metal sinks in the middle of the room with a dozen faucets and several small built-in shelves probably meant for toothpaste, soap and other supplies. To the left of the door were the showers, which consisted of ten faucets and shower heads with two sets of handles beneath them, all set inside a step-deep area in the floor with a single large drain set in the middle.

The whole room was a mess and smelled like puke, pee and other less notable body products and was absolutely filthy. Obviously being inmates made these girls less than caring about how to be very neat. There were several wads of wet toilet paper splashed against the ceiling in fact and the words "Eat Shit" were written on the inside of one stall in something that looked quite vaguely like the for mentioned substance. Any preconceived notion that Helga ever held about girls being naturally cleaner than boys were instantly dismissed in her mind. There was no way that a boy's bathroom could possibly look worse.

"Hey Pataki," Bowers said, smirking. "You'se can start by checking the drains in the shower. It's stopped up."

Helga glanced over at the drain, which was just underneath several inches of soapy water. "Oh criminy," she muttered to herself.

She removed her shoes and socks and rolled up her pants legs to her knees. Then taking hold of the plunger, she stepped into the cold, soap-grimed water and walked over to the drain cover. She bent over, reaching into the water and lifted off the five-pound drain cover and equally heavy iron filter underneath, both of which were covered in hairs of all colors.

Helga grimaced at the deep drain and began to work on it with the plunger. It got stuck after a few seconds and the stick slipped out of his hands and she fell backwards on her butt in the water, getting her prison clothes wet.

Both Bowers and Pena howled in laughter as they watched on.

Helga scowled and looked down at her hands, worried about splinters. Then she stood up, her clothes soaked and dripping. She took a firm hold of the plunger and began the task again.

Finally, after what seemed like half an hour, the soapy water bubbled over the drain and slowly began to drain in a gurgle.

Once the water drained, Helga could finally see what clogged the pipe. There was a large wad of brown and gray hair stuck about six inches inside the pipe. She made a face as she rolled up her sleeve to her elbow and gulping, reached into the grime-covered drain pipe and wrapped her fingers around the vile, slimy wad of hair and pulled it out.

Helga let out an ear-piercing scream and fell back again, dropping the wad and sliding back away till her back was against the wall of the shower area. Her eyes were fixed on the hair wad in horror.

The wad itself was indeed hair, well mostly . . . but only part of which was human.

Fixed among the brownish and black wads of human hair was a drowned gray rat—a really big one. Its back eyes were glossy white and its teeth were sticking out as well as its small tongue, its long nude tail stuck out of the wad. The rat itself had to be about as big as Helga's fist.

_Oh my God! I touched it! I touched a dead rat!_ Helga thought as she took quick panicked breaths, her eyes fixed on the vile dead creature.

The two thugs were laughing hard now. "Aww, what's the matter, Pataki? Scared of a wittle bitty mousie?" Bowers taunted, sounding like a female version of Harold, and looking about halfway as smart too.

Pena frowned at Helga and told her, "Get to work!" The two older inmates then left, the bathroom ringing with their laughter.

Helga finally managed to compose herself before she hyperventilated. Summing up all of her courage, she managed to use a sheet of toilet paper to pick the dead rat up by the tail and toss it into the waste basket, shuddering and feeling as if she needed to take a long hot shower.

She took a scrub brush and began the hard job of scrubbing out the shower area and the floor of the bathroom. It was a long, hard job that made Helga ache all over. Her arms muscles felt unbelievably stiff as she scrubbed the grout from the tiles. Every now and again, an inmate would come in and spit on the floor near her, which she had to clean up scowling. She didn't say anything to them.

Next Helga scrubbed out the toilets, which smelled very badly. One inmate didn't even bother flushing and gave Helga a smirk before leaving. She felt like hitting her with the mop, but instead flushed the toilet and cleaned it too.

Finally, after what seemed like several hours, the room was presentably clean. Helga smiled a small smile and was about to return the cleaning tools when Bowers and Pena returned. They kicked over the bucket with the dirty water all over it. Another half-hour worth of work lay before an already sore and aching Helga.

Bowers smiled a nasty smile at Helga. "Clean it up, _bitch_!"

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	14. Part 13: Lunch Room Blues

**Chapter Thirteen: Lunch Room Blues**

The word had spread quickly, as it usually does in a school the size of PS 118.

Arnold and Gerald were walking to their usual table in the lunchroom. All around them, the story of Helga's arrest, hearing and sentencing were on the lips of everyone within earshot. Among them were idle gossip and rumors that were, in some cases accurate, and in others very fanciful. The wildest of these rumors had been that Helga stole a police car and hit several pedestrians as she attempted to escape before the police caught up to her in a high speed pursuit and locked her away.

However, despite if the differences between the rumors that were accurate or those that were mere fabrications made up by so-called "witnesses" everyone that Arnold heard mention the case had no doubt at all of Helga's guilt. Some even expressed their high opinions that two months, and maybe more in Cherry Hill was not nearly severe enough a sentence.

"Always knew that Pataki girl would go too far someday," one fifth grade girl said to a pack of her loudly gossiping female friends at a nearby table. "She was always walking down the hallways, shoving people left and right, like some kind-of a big shot. Now she went and did something far more serious."

"Yeah," Agreed another girl, "My friend Allison couldn't come in today because she was so terrified from the fire. I hope that girl gets what's coming to her in Cherry Hill, I tell you." The whole table nodded at this.

Arnold stopped and turned to scowl at them, but before he could utter a single word, Gerald tugged at his arm, almost spilling the contents of his tray. He shook his head, "Don't listen to them, Arnold." He muttered as they resumed walking to their usual table. "We know that Helga wouldn't do this."

Arnold looked over at Gerald and nodded. "You're right, it's just that . . ." he sighed "I can't believe how quickly everyone thinks she could have started that fire."

"Face it man, Helga is a victim of her own bully reputation," Gerald said as they made it to their table. "That and the evidence, even if it is circumstantial, can make anyone think she was guilty."

Arnold knew that Gerald was telling the truth, but that didn't make it right, especially when it came to their class. Helga was their friend, even if she was sort-of annoying sometimes. They always played ball together at Gerald Field and hung out in their group together after school. Helga was one of them! So how could they possibly believe she would ever do something like that?

It made Arnold so angry that he refused to talk to any of them throughout class all day, except for Gerald. He'd looked back at Phoebe a few times, only to see her looking down at her desk, a sad look in her eyes, not really meeting his gaze. He knew that this whole ordeal had to be as hard on Phoebe as it was on him. She was losing her best friend for who knows how long.

As for Arnold, he'd felt all morning as if something were missing. It was silly given that the person he was missing usually spent most of her morning tossing spit balls at him and then pretending that she didn't know what he was looking back at her afterwards, or calling him names like _"football-head"_ and _"hair-boy"_ and other things of that sort.

It was funny, once he would have given money to have a day without Helga there to annoy him or call him names and goof on him. One time, he'd even agreed with Gerald when he said that Helga Pataki was someone he would never miss.

Now, when Arnold looked back at the empty seat behind him in class, he would have given anything to see that annoying scowl, or have a spit ball hit him in the back of the neck, or hear that sarcastic voice call him _"football-head."_

He sighed, "You're right, Gerald. Still, I wish everyone would at least consider that Helga might _not_ have done it."

Arnold looked over and saw Phoebe walk into the lunch room. She didn't have a tray, just one of the free milks and she looked over at her and Helga's usual table sadly.

"Hey Gerald, Phoebe looks all alone over there by herself. You want to call her over and let her sit with us?" Arnold actually smiled slightly knowing Gerald wouldn't mind that at all.

His best friend smiled at him, then turned to look at Phoebe. "Hey Phoebe!" Gerald called out to her. "You wanna come over and sit with us?" Phoebe nodded a little, smiling slightly at Gerald and walked over. She sat in the seat across and between the two boys at the circular table.

"How are you holding up, Phoebe?" Arnold asked.

Phoebe sighed, looking down at the milk carton. It was white milk. "I'm feeling really discontented right now, Arnold. It just seems so different with Helga gone. And then there is everyone talking about her like she's guilty and saying she deserves going to juvenile hall." Arnold could see the tears in Phoebe's small dark eyes then. Gerald did too and he took her small, dainty hand into one of his on the top of the table.

Arnold sighed again and nodded. Then he noticed something. Phoebe didn't have any lunch with her. "Hey Phoebe, where's your lunch today?"

Phoebe looked a little blank for a moment then said, "Um . . . my mother forgot to give me my lunch money today." She said this in an almost convincing way, but it did not fool either Gerald or Arnold for a second.

"Phoebe, what is going on? Did something happen?" Gerald asked her, sounding very concerned.

She wanted to desperately tell them, but Phoebe remembered what Cookie and Simone told her about what would happen to her if she said anything to anyone. As if on cue, Cookie and Simone appeared in the lunch room, looking at her as they passed by with similar smirks and wicked gleams in their eyes.

Phoebe slowly shook her head and looked down unable to face the boys. "No, nothing happened." She felt guilt at having to lie to Gerald, the boy she cared for and to Arnold, who had always been just as good a friend to her as Helga had on many occasions.

Both Arnold and Gerald shared a look. They knew she was lying, but decided to not press the matter. Gerald however took it a step further. "Listen Phoebe, if you want someone to hang around with during school while Helga is gone, you're more than welcome to hang with us, right Arnold?"

Arnold nodded in total agreement. "That's right, Phoebe. You're our friend too and we all believe that Helga is innocent."

Phoebe looked up at both of them and suddenly felt another reason to cry, only this time with joy and a small smile on her face. "Thank you that really does mean a lot to me right now."

Gerald gave her one of his apples and Arnold offered her his tapioca pudding. Phoebe accepted them, being very hungry, and again thanked them in Japanese, which she spoke automatically at times when she was really excited or happy. _"__Arigato Gozaimasu."_

They nodded smiling. "You're very welcome, Phoebe," Gerald said smiling at her.

Arnold smiled a little feeling some comfort in their mutual acceptance of each other. He only hoped and prayed that Helga was somehow managing to deal with her first day in Cherry Hill somewhat better.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_

"_Arigato Gozaimasu" means "Thank you very much" in Japanese._


	15. Part 14: Pigeon Girl And The Short Lunch

**Chapter Fourteen: Pigeon Girl and the Short Lunch**

The bell rang loudly just as Helga finished cleaning out the bathroom. Her arms, knees, back and neck were stiff and sore from so much manual labor that she was not used to. She literally felt ill at having to clean up after messes that made her gag several times.

Despite feeling ill, Helga also felt quite hungry, having worked up quite an appetite.

She returned the mop and bucket with the other cleaning supplies to the front office of the dorm and made her way over to the line of inmates being counted by Bowers and Pena. She found a spot between Trashmouth and Miranda Riley, who looked as exhausted as Helga did. Trashmouth looked a little beat also, as well as somewhat sweaty like Miranda, but somehow still seemed to have some energy. She was smoking a filtered cigarette.

"Well, what did you think of your first day of shit house duty, Pataki?" Trashmouth asked her smiling a little, her eyebrow raised.

Helga sighed, looking wearily at the floor and muttered, "Disgusting."

Miranda groaned, "You should see some of the stains in the underwear I had to help wash and fold." Helga didn't really want to think about it.

Trashmouth smiled some, though without humor. "Yeah it's pretty rough in the laundry room too. Shit house duty is the easiest job here, next to working in the greenhouse; just wait till they put you guys on the road gang for the afternoon. Walker does it to all of the new fish, says it 'builds character' and whatever she says, her two bitches, Bowers and Pena will go along with it."

Helga scowled over at the two inmates that were counting the inmates and taking the roll. She watched as Bowers stepped forward and shoved one smaller girl for standing a little too far out of the line.

Pena turned and shouted out, "All accounted for, Miss Walker!"

From behind the fencing that separates the main office from the rest of the dorm, Miss Walker cut on the microphone and her harsh voice rang out over the PA system: _"Okay ladies, time for chow, line up! All new inmates are to report to the counselor's office immediately afterwards!"_

A buzzer sounded and the inmates were marched single file through the office area passed the frowning Miss Walker and through the large metal door. They then turned down the hallway and around another corner to an unsecured wooden door with lots of scratches in the blue paint. The words: **Mess Hall** was inscribed in faded white letters on the door.

The Mess Hall was a large room with gray painted walls, like the dorm, with blue painted doors and two dozen rectangular tables set up in rows of four in the middle of the room. Each table had long wooden benches. There were windows, letting in light from the afternoon outside, all of which had fencing over them, casting diamond-shaped sunbeam patterns on the closest tables.

The inmates all lined up against the wall on the far side of the room where the food was distributed in much the same manner as it was in school, except that it was older inmates who were dishing out the food with large metal spoons. The food itself looked somewhat like typical cafeteria food, even smelled like it. All of Helga's queasiness left her at the smell of food, no matter how bad it was. After throwing up her previous meal earlier in the bathroom, she realized just how hungry she was. Helga picked up a tray as she came to a stack of them, as well as a metal spoon. She looked around and did not see any forks.

"You won't find any," Trashmouth told her, as if reading her mind. "They don't let the inmates have forks anymore. Once a girl was stabbed in the throat with a fork, so now all they have are spoons." Helga, who only now managed to regain her appetite, suddenly no longer felt all that hungry.

Miranda paled also. "W-what about plastic utensils?"

Trashmouth shook her head, "Plastic can be melted down into shanks."

"Shanks?" Helga asked.

"Homemade knives and stabbing weapons," the inmate explained.

They came up to where inmates were dishing out some food for them. "Ah, look what we have today, some delicious garbage stew," Trashmouth said smirking to a frowning inmate behind the counter. "You've really outdone yourself today, Sutherland."

The thin, lanky inmate with bad acne who was dishing out the stew looked up at her and sneered, her dark eyes showing some hidden amusement. "Yeah, just like mother used to make . . . that's why I shot her." She said this in a very deadpan way. Trashmouth only chuckled and shook her head as she took a piece of cornbread, leading Helga to believe that the latter part had been a joke. At least she hoped so anyway.

After getting a lunch which consisted of the fore mentioned "garbage stew" (which itself was made up of greasy-looking vegetables and some sort of meat Helga couldn't identify), cornbread, apple slices, some white rice and a small carton of chocolate milk, Helga followed behind Trashmouth with Miranda right behind her.

"Why don't you guys join me at my usual table?" Trashmouth asked. They followed the redhead to a table near the front left of the mess hall where only one other inmate sat.

"Hey PG! How's Tony doing?" Trashmouth said, sitting down across from the inmate.

The girl was short and thin, with short, shoulder-length brown hair, small blue eyes, a long, thin nose and large ears. She looked up at Trashmouth as Helga and Miranda sat down beside them, Helga sitting next to Trash mouth and Miranda next to the inmate.

"He's doing much better today, Trashmouth." She told her in a surprisingly deep voice, not unlike Big Patty's despite her short stature. "Can I have your cornbread today?"

Trashmouth nodded and said, "Half as usual." She broke off half of her ration of cornbread and passed it over to her. The inmate took it and put it in a brown paper bag. Then she looked over at Helga and Miranda, noticing them for the first time. "Who are the Cherries?"

"Oh these two are okay, don't worry," Trashmouth said, looking over her "garbage stew" and frowning. "These are Pataki and Riley. Ladies this is Jessica Valentine, also known as 'Pigeon Girl.'"

Helga looked at her and snorted, "Pigeon Girl? Why do they call you_that_?"

Pigeon Girl looked over at her, eyes narrowed and said, in a less than friendly tone, "What's it to_ you_, Cherry?"

"Well, I just want to make sure you won't start cooing or leaving any little presents on the table." Helga said sarcastically. That comment sent Trashmouth into a fit of giggles. Miranda was too nervous to smile or anything, but watched to see how the inmate would take it.

Instead of getting mad, Pigeon Girl smirked slightly and rolled her eyes. "I see you have yourself a perfect new friend, Trashmouth." Trashmouth merely nodded to her and tore the remainder of her cornbread into the stew they got, still giggling.

Pigeon Girl looked over at Helga again and her eyes glanced at her tray. "Can I have some of your cornbread?"

Helga looked at her curiously and asked, "What for, you that hungry?"

"I need it to feed my pigeons, especially Tony," she answered. Then she opened up her jacket to reveal a small sewn in pocket on the inside where a small pigeon sat. It cooed quietly. "I found him over by the greenhouse. His wing was broken. I am taking care of him till he can fly again."

Helga personally didn't find the idea of carrying around a pigeon all that hygienic, however the sight of the bird sort-of reminded Helga of Chester, a pigeon that Arnold cared for. It was this connection with her beloved that made Helga tear her off a piece of cornbread in half and hand it to the short girl.

Pigeon Girl nodded and smiled slightly, "Thanks." A cooing from her pocket could be heard then. She smiled again. "Oh and Tony said thanks too."

"Well 'coo coo ca-choo' to him too," Helga said smirking. Again Trashmouth giggled and shook her head at this. This time Miranda smiled and chuckled a little too, feeling less anxiety. She too gave Pigeon Girl a share of her cornbread.

"Hey, you're okay, Pataki," Pigeon Girl said smiling and taking Miranda's cornbread and adding it to her bag. "Oh and if you prefer you can always just call me PG. Everyone does."

Helga nodded and looked down again at her food. Again that nauseating cafeteria food smell came to her, but she was very hungry and decided to give it a go. She picked up her spoon and scooped up some of the "garbage stew" and ate it. It wasn't the best, but it would do. Across from her, Miranda was already digging in as well.

Trashmouth looked over at her and said, "Well, you two must be desperately hungry. Personally, I'd sooner eat a boy's sweatsocks than that stuff." She paused and looked like she was thinking, "Come to think of it, the sweatsocks would probably smell better than the slop that Sutherland usually dishes out." Helga ignored the comments and continued eating, not knowing when she would have more.

PG looked over and said, "Oh let them be, Trashmouth. They already have to go to see the shrink later, and its better they do that on a full stomach."

Helga looked over at them. "So, what's this jailhouse shrink like?"

Trashmouth shrugged, "Ole Dr. Lang? She's pretty decent, though tough sometimes. She dislikes bullies and helps run the classroom sometimes during learning hours."

"Only hard cases or people who can't cope on the inside usually go see her, but she says her door is always open," PG said.

"I go see her all the time," Trashmouth said.

"Gee, some surprise," Helga muttered rolling her eyes and smiling a little. Miranda and PG all chuckled and Trashmouth herself giggled as well.

Miranda looked slightly worried a moment later. "I've never talked to a psychologist before."

Helga shook her head, "Oh don't worry, they're all alike, they want to (she makes air quotations with her fingers) 'get to the root of the matter, try to uncover any emotions you may be hiding' and all that stuff." She smiled a little remembering when Dr. Bliss said those exact words to her.

Trashmouth smirked again, "Wow Pataki, you sound like someone with experience."

Helga was about to answer when someone sat down in the chair next to her. It was Pena. She looked at Helga through her dark brown eyes as if she were nothing but a bug on the sidewalk. Across from Helga, Bowers pushed Miranda over so she could sit in her place. She smirked at Helga with a dark sort-of amusement. Trashmouth and PG both kept their mouth shut, watching this one play out.

"So Blondie how did you like your first day of shit house duty?" Bowers said in a nasty nasal tone. Helga could feel her anger rising, as well as feel the hard gaze Pena was giving her, though she did not look over to see it. She decided to keep her mouth shut this time.

"Hey bitch! I'm talking to you!" Bowers hissed, not too loudly, but enough to know she was displeased. "You answer when your betters ask you a question; didn't your mommy ever teach you that?" Helga's hands shook as she struggled hard to fight down the urge to slam her tray into Bower's big stupid face.

Bowers smirked at her then leaned over and said, "Well, if you liked that job, wait and see what's in store for you tomorrow." Her breath smelled terrible and Helga could see that one of her teeth was rotting.

Then Bowers leaned over, snorting and then spat a big, green-looking loogie in Helga's lunch. Pena snickered. Helga stood up quickly, hey eyes blazing with fury. She didn't care that it was two on one, she was pissed.

"Do_we_ have a problem here ladies?" A voice spoke up from behind Helga. She turned and saw Miss Walker standing there behind her, looking down at her with her own wicked amusement.

"Oh, there's no problem here, Miss Walker," Bowers said, the amusement still in her voice as she put on an innocence act.

Miss Walker's dark eyes bore into Helga's and then looked her over once. For some reason, the stare the heavy-set guard gave Helga a dirty feeling. "Do _we_ have a problem Pataki?" The guard repeated to her.

Helga always hated the medical "we" when it was used on her, especially by doctors. She wanted to say something sarcastic about it, but after a moment's thought, she just shook her head not wanting to press her luck with the guard.

"No problem," Helga muttered, angry and trying her best to not show it.

Miss Walker frowned then, "No problem, _Miss Walker_." She corrected stressing the use of her name. Her eyes blazed at Helga.

Helga repeated, "No problem, Miss Walker." She said this submissively enough, but her eyes never left Miss Walker's gaze.

Miss Walker noticed this and frowned. "I hope you're not going to be a hard case, Pataki," she muttered darkly. Then she said, "Sit back down." Helga did as she was told, still never taking her eyes off of the guard, despite the two bullies behind her.

The large woman then turned to Bowers and Pena and said, "You two have a job to do, so go do it." There was a strange undertone to those words that Helga picked up on. The bullies left, but not before Pena shoved Helga slightly. Helga told herself not to react and keep her cool, though it was very hard for her. Miss Walker afforded her one last glance and a sneer before she too walked away.

It was then that Helga suddenly began to shake and her stomach felt sore with anxiety.

"Whoa, that was gutsy of you, Pataki," Trashmouth said in very admiring tones. "Not too many people eyeball Walker like that or get by with it."

"Not very smart either," PG said offering her own two cents. "She won't forget that, if I were you, I'd grow eyes in the back of my head."

Helga looked over at PG and nodded. "Thanks for the advice." Then glanced back down to the large glob of green snot and spit in the middle of her tray, no longer very hungry.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	16. Part 15: Dr Lang

**Chapter Fifteen: Dr. Lang**

Dr. Jennifer Lang sat back on the worn and slightly torn leather chair behind her office desk, looking up at the ceiling fan in her small, stuffy office. Her nearby window blinds were open, letting in some sunlight from the afternoon sun. Unlike the rest of the building, the windows of her office were not covered with the same wire fencing that the populated areas all had. The window was cracked open slightly to allow some of the cool autumn breeze inside her small stuffy third floor office.

She removed her wire-rimmed glasses from her dark blue eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to relieve some of the stress she was dealing with. As the resident councilor of the Cherry Hill Juvenile Reformatory for Girls, she had to deal with quite a lot of it.

Dr. Lang looked over at the picture of her husband Ronald and her twin daughters Nichole and Shelby, which in moments like these; she always managed to draw some sort-of strength from.

Taking a sip of her hot coffee from the mug that her daughters had given her for Mother's Day last year, Dr. Lang looked back down at the files on her desk with a tired sigh. Ten new arrivals, six of these, Dr. Lang had already interviewed. She reviewed those files briefly, as well as her own notes and attachments concerning each new inmate she'd interviewed.

_Bland, Jessica. Age twelve. Convicted on 10/07 of prostitution and criminal narcotics possession. Arrested soliciting a twenty-two year old undercover police officer. Sentenced to two years, parole eligibility after six months. No prior convictions or arrests._

The fact that the girl had no priors was a good sign that she may not be too far gone to receive rehabilitation. Indeed, from talking to her briefly, Dr. Lang believed that she was as much a victim of her circumstances, especially when the subject of her stepfather was brought up. She'd told Dr. Lang, in not too many words, about her home life and it was not very happy at all. Her mother was a known heroin addict who was currently doing time herself and her stepfather was also a somewhat shady character, who had at least three known priors concerning sexual assaults on minors, with time served for at least two of those. Dr. Lang shook her head, hoping that one of her fears was unfounded. If not, then the girl's road to recovery may be very bumpy indeed.

_Grant, Heather. Age eleven. Convicted on 10/06 of criminal assault on another student at P.S. 103. Arrested for stabbing a classmate in the ear with a pencil after an apparent assault by the fore mentioned student. The student had been hospitalized in stable condition. Sentenced to five years, parole eligibility after eighteen months. No prior convictions or arrests._

This girl, Dr. Lang concluded upon talking to her, had been tormented by the other girl, a known bully at her school, to a point of collapse and her action had been in the spur of the moment. Indeed, even talking about it had been tough on the girl, who'd begun crying loudly and shaking over the memory. She honestly regretted what she'd done.

Her lack of other trouble with the law or from her school records indicated she was not a trouble maker, or violent offender, but a shy girl pushed to violence by a bully through almost two years of verbal and mental cruelty. Dr. Lang felt nothing but sorrow for this girl, who looked so much like one of her own daughters.

As if that hadn't been bad enough for Heather Grant, she'd been the subject of a medical search by Guard Walker. Lang frowned. While she understood the technical reasons for some procedures in Cherry Hill, that type of search on a young girl was, by far, one she had very little use for—especially one done by Guard Walker, who was not among Dr. Lang's top favorite resident guards. However, since her role here was only to examine the inmates rather than dictate policies approved of by the current administration in charge of the facility.

Copeland, Shauna, age twelve and Jackson, Shawana, age eleven. Both had been convicted on October seventh of criminal assault. Both had been members of the lower Westside gang "The Cripplers" and were arrested following an assault on an eighty-one year old woman during an attempted robbery. The old woman had been hospitalized. Sentenced to three years each, parole eligibility after eighteen months.

Both of these were already career criminals, despite their relative youth. One of them, Copeland, already served time here before for related activities. Both of them were probably lost causes, but Dr. Lang knew she had to try.

_Simpson, Maria. Age eleven. Convicted on 10/07 of selling narcotics to fellow students at P.S. 120. Arrested after being taken to the principal's office by police officers. Sentenced to one year, parole eligibility after six months._

This girl had been a definite hard case, who spent most of the time during her interview shouting obscenities at Dr. Lang and had to be forcefully removed when she exhibited violent behavior. Now she was probably serving her first evening at Cherry Hill in solitary confinement, which was also known to the facility's population, as well as most of the correctional personnel simply as "The Hole." Dr. Lang held no sympathies as she recalled how the girl almost picked up a paperweight to throw at her head. It had taken three guards to subdue her long enough for the sedation to kick in.

She shook her head, knowing that some of these inmates would no doubt resume their ways the moment that they were released, and unfortunately, probably be even better at being criminals from their exposure to other bad apples. Still, Dr. Lang saw it as her duty to try and to get through to those few who could still be reached and help them to make a better start when they were released.

The last girl interviewed had been a truly heartbreaking story.

_Riley, Miranda. Age ten. Convicted on 10/08 of shoplifting. Arrested by security officers in the mall and taken into custody by Hillwood city police several days prior. Sentenced to one year, parole eligibility after six months._

From what Dr. Lang had been told Miranda Riley had been the victim of her own poor choice of boyfriends. Her boyfriend, or rather "supposed boyfriend" Billy Nash, a known bad boy in her neighborhood, used her as a distraction while he and several of his buddies stole some merchandise from a local mall. Before leaving her alone, he left incriminating evidence in her jacket pocket...or so Miranda Riley claimed.

The idea that the girl was lying to make herself seem more sympathetic did indeed cross Dr. Lang's mind, as well as the possibility that this "boyfriend" could also have been a made up story for someone who choose not to feel either remorse or guilt for her crime and was only angry at being caught. She considered that a moment then shook her head; the sadness that she'd seen in that girl's eyes was real. That one was worth holding out hope for, of that Dr. Lang was certain.

Setting aside that file, she looked down at the next file.

_Pataki, Helga G. Age ten. Convicted on 10/08 of arson of a school building and resisting arrest. Arrested later that same day with struggle. Reprimanded by judicial order to serve time till an appeal hearing set for 12/28._

Dr. Lang paused. The story of the fire in the principal's office of P.S. 118 had been top news, along with the public outcry over punishing the individual involved. She looked down at the black and white lineup picture of the girl that came with the file with a frown, and then she glanced over the girl's personal history. Dozens of fights and confrontations with other students, disciplined on several occasions for bullying.

Hey jaw set and a scowl immediately came to her face.

When Jennifer Lang was in public school, she too had been tormented by a large bully named Rachel, whom she had been terrified of. The memories of that encounter brought back both the knot of fear in her stomach and the shame of humiliation that she'd always felt with her tormentor.

Also, this brought on another emotion . . . anger. Bullies, to this day, made her extremely angry and she had little or no patience with them, despite her PHD in child and teenage psychology, as well as her own professional oath. The mere mention of bullies was the only blind spot in her professional objectivity.

Indeed, this girl, according to the school reports, had a pattern of behavior which suggested a personality that was quite rough and even possibly dangerous. In the end, this same girl finally went too far when the principal gave her detention for striking another student in an altercation. According to the same records, the inmate, Helga Pataki had been assigned psychological therapy for her continued assaults on fellow students. Dr. Lang was just about to snort, thinking that obviously that the psychologist she was assigned to must have overlooked something in her behavior, when she blinked.

The signature on the reports from the resident school psychologist was Dr. Christine Bliss.

Dr. Bliss and Dr. Lang went way back, all the way to medical school, despite the fact that neither young woman had either seen, or spoken to each other in almost three years. In college, they'd been very good friends and dorm mates together.

She smiled a little despite herself and, taking a small notepad from her desk, wrote down the following in blue ink: _Call C. Bliss soon about H. Pataki, just a reminder!_

Nodding, she put this aside then stood up, walked over to the door and opened it. Sitting on an old wooden bench outside her office in the hallway were four other new girls waiting for their turn.

"Pataki," she called out to the inmates.

The girl who had been talking quietly to Miranda Riley at the end of the bench looked over. The girl's blue eyes meet Dr. Lang's own, a fact that surprised the psychologist a little. Most new arrivals don't usually meet her eyes, unless they were doing so to try and somehow intimidate her, such as the hard case from before.

Looking at Helga Pataki, Dr. Lang realized that the look she was giving her was not one she usually associated with those same hard cases. There was nothing intimidating to her in that stare, but rather it was the look of one equal studying the strength of another.

She frowned slightly, trying to show that _she_ was the one in charge here. The inmate continued to keep eye contact with her, completely non-intimidated. Then Dr. Lang could see Miranda Riley getting her attention. Abruptly the blonde inmate broke off eye contact and turned back to the smaller girl and nodded, patting her shoulder.

Dr. Lang wondered if Riley and Pataki were friends and if so then why. Bullies as a rule only used people as small and vulnerable-looking at Miranda Riley. Sometimes people like Riley hung out with bullies because of protection from other inmates and often to help them with their bullying depending on the individual. Miranda Riley didn't seem like the latter type, even if she did seem a bit less confident, but obviously the situation deserved more observation and attention from her.

Then Helga Pataki stood up and entered the office. Dr. Lang shut the door and pointed to the chair in front of her desk. "Please have a seat," She told her in a neutral tone of voice.

As the girl sat down, Dr. Lang took the opportunity to take a closer look at Helga Pataki. She was not exactly what she was expecting in the way of a bully. Most female bullies were generally large, husky, tough-looking girls with visibly bad attitudes and demeanors.

Helga Pataki did scowl a little, a sign of one of the tough attitudes Dr. Lang normally expected from bullies. However, instead of being large and husky looking, the girl before her was tall and somewhat thin. Dr. Lang also knew that despite the haircut new arrivals got and the State issued dungaree uniform she was wearing, that she was a somewhat awkward girl with her appearance. She had a wide mouth which probably prevented perfect beauty, but she was well on her way to growing up to be a lovely young lady.

That is, if Dr. Lang could help her see that what she did was wrong. She again looked the girl right in the eyes. Again the girl did not look away or blink under the scrutiny.

"Helga Pataki is it?" She asked knowing full well the answer. "My name is Dr. Lang, how are you today?" She said all of this smiling slightly; trying to convince this girl it was okay to open up to her.

Instead Helga looked at her strangely and raised the left side of her unibrow. "How am I today? Criminy lady, how do you _think_ I am today?! I'm stuck in juvenile hall with a bunch of losers and delinquents!"

Dr. Lang's smile faded. She seemed as if she thought herself better than the others she was populated with. Not an uncommon reaction from most.

"Well, according to this . . ." she said holding up a paper, ". . . you're going to be with us for at least a couple of months or so." She waited to hear what the new inmate would say about that. Instead, Helga just looked down at the floor.

Dr. Lang raised an eyebrow as she looked over her file. "Twenty-three fights and confrontations with your fellow students at PS 118, five of these this year alone." She looked up to see the girl looking at her again. She wondered if Helga Pataki would try to justify her actions like most bullies did. The usual excuse being that they didn't "start" the fight, but rather "finished" it.

Again the girl said nothing, no justification and no denials.

The psychiatrist continued, "The latest of these involved shoving another student against a locker, resulting in a detention, which was never served for obvious reasons." She looked up at Helga, who was now looking out at the window.

"So, you set a fire in your principal's office to get even." Dr. Lang stated the undisputed results matter-of-factly.

Helga looked over quickly and their eyes meet again. Dr. Lang knew that next could happen, the usual denial or excuse. "But I didn't set that fire!" The new arrival protested, just as the psychologist predicted.

Dr. Lang nodded, "I see, and I suppose you did not shove this girl down either? Or bully these other kids here?" She tapped at the file with her information on it with her finger.

The girl stood up and, pointing her finger at her, said, "Look here, lady, I know what I did and _didn't _do, and I am telling you, I did not start that fire!"

"Sit down young lady!" Dr. Lang said to her in the firm voice of authority that she used on both inmates and her own children alike. She knew that the girl was trying to intimidate her and she would have note of it. Helga did as she was told, slowly and looking at her with narrowed eyes.

"Pataki," Dr. Lang began, using her last name to remind the girl of her status as a prisoner. "You need to remember something. As long as you deny your crime, you will not have any consideration to be released early from your original sentence." She paused a moment to let that sink in, then she folded her hands and rested her arms on the desk, leaning forward.

Dr. Lang continued, "I want to help you, but first you have to help yourself. You have to admit that you committed a crime and that you have a problem with your anger. It's not too late to help you change your ways and to rejoin your life as a better person, but you have to give me something to go on. Some show of good faith."

The girl blinked a moment, and then said calmly, "Look, Doc. I didn't set that fire. I don't know who did, but you have the wrong girl. I swear!"

Dr. Lang sighed. She didn't really expect anything to change all at once. Then she said, "Very well, you may go now." Helga stood up and walked over to the door.

"Pataki," Dr. Lang called out to her just before she touched the doorknob. The girl paused and turned to look at her, her face very neutral. "You are free to come in and talk to me anytime you want to. If you need anything, or feel the need to talk or confide in someone, I'm always here, okay?"

Helga nodded slightly, turned back to the door and left.

Dr. Lang sighed again and shook her head. She picked up a pen and began to write on a sheet of paper labeled: **Psychological Observations.**

_(10/09) This entry follows the first meeting with the subject, Pataki, Helga Geraldine, #0712. Subject shows a complete lack of remorse for her crimes, refuses to accept responsibility for her actions regarding the crime she was convicted of. Her personal history shows a combative and hostile personality._

Below these were several boxes that listed the diagnosis, prognosis, and recommendations. In these she wrote the following:

**Diagnosis:**_Possible anti-social personality disorder_.

**Prognosis:**_ Fair to hopeful._

**Recommendations:**_I believe that the subject is not too far gone to receive rehabilitative modification of the sort offered in this facility with positive outcome._

At the bottom she signed her name: _Dr. J. Lang._

She looked down at the file, looking once again at the picture of the young girl she just spoke to. The photo had been the mug shot taken at the police station of the girl before her processing, who still had a full head of blonde hair and a plain pink dress with a matching ribbon in her hair.

"Ten years old," Dr. Lang muttered and shook her head once again glancing at the photo of her husband and daughters, again trying to draw strength from them as she closed the file and put it on the stack with the others.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	17. Part 16: Billy Nash And Footballhead Tea...

**Chapter Sixteen: Billy Nash and Football-head's Tears**

The bell rang announcing the end of another boring school day at PS 118.

Arnold quickly put his books away in his book bag and stood up. Gerald, who sat next to him, did the same. As they began to leave, they heard Mr. Simmons call over to Phoebe.

"Phoebe, if it would not be too much to ask, would you mind returning Helga's papers and books to her parents?" Mr. Simmons asked her this in a very quiet, sad-sounding voice.

Arnold and Gerald stopped and turned their heads to see Phoebe look up sadly at Mr. Simmons a moment, then nod and answer quietly, "Of course, Mr. Simmons." They both walked out and waited for Phoebe outside in the hallway.

When she emerged, looking very depressed and carrying a heaven burden of books, Arnold spoke to her. "Hey Phoebe, would you like some company on your way home? We could help you carry some of those books . . . that is if you don't mind?"

Phoebe smiled a little and said, "I would appreciate that, Arnold." She handed Helga's books and papers over to him as Gerald offered her an encouraging smile. Together the three fourth graders made their way down the hallway towards the front entrance.

Gerald looked at her a little, smiled disarmingly and asked Phoebe, "How'd you hold up today, girl?"

The short oriental girl sighed and said, "It's been rough, I just keep thinking about Helga and everything from yesterday, you know? It's like I keep replaying those events in my head nonstop until I feel ready to scream at something." She looked over at them. "Do either of you understand my preoccupation?"

Gerald looked at her sadly and with a great deal of sympathy. Arnold looked at her with a very tired expression and nodded, "I do."

Phoebe nodded a little, looking down at the floor of the hallway. She did not blame Gerald for not understanding her feelings as he and Helga had barely been on very good terms. Tolerable would have been the key word for their relationship with each other. Phoebe wished that was not so, but it had been. She held no grudge against Gerald for this however, she couldn't. Helga never really made it very easy for anyone other than a very few people to understand her. At least he cared enough to believe in Helga's innocence and that alone made Phoebe proud of him and hopeful for the future.

Arnold's understanding of her situation, however, was something that she could understand given the feeling they were beginning to explore when all this began. In many ways, other than herself, Arnold probably understood Helga better than most people. Sometimes, he even seemed to understand her best friend even better than she herself did.

Well, at least in some things anyhow.

The three of them emerged into an overcast sky outside on the steps of the school. The cool autumn breeze blew across them making them huddle a little more into their jackets. Other kids were all walking off in pairs and individually towards the bus stops or towards their homes. Some stood around to talk and gossip, especially the girls.

At the bottom of the steps stood Harold, Sid and Stinky, with Rhonda, Nadine and Sheena. They looked up at him with various glances and Arnold shot them all a scowling glare back. They all quickly turned away from his penetrating gaze. None of them believed in Helga, whom they'd all known, befriended and played with since preschool. So what if she'd been a bully and a little . . . well disagreeable sometimes? Helga was still their friend and she deserved the benefit of the doubt.

From around the corner of the building came the sound of several motorized engines. Everyone turned to see a black painted foreign made dirt bike with a red stripe painted on the side turn up the side street letting off dark looking smoke from its exhaust, followed by three others, one with a side car. The others were also painted black with a red stripe. The front of the sidecar, where a figure sat, was painted with a red, evil-looking cat skull. All of the bikes looked very dirty and well used.

The bikes came roaring up to the front of the building. The lead bike was clearly the leader. He wore a black helmet with the same red skull painted on the side. He stopped directly in front of the group and rimmed up the engine a second then put his feet on the ground. The others followed suit. The leader wore a black leather jacket with several patches on it that Arnold couldn't quite make out from the distance and a pair of torn and old-looking black jeans with a wallet chain sticking out of the left side and black biker boots. The figure removed his helmet and turned to face them.

He was a weedy-looking character who looked to be about fourteen years old, with dark black greasy hair, intense-looking dark eyes, a prominent nose and a nasty, wicked sort-of smirk that forcefully reminded Arnold of Frankie G. Indeed he was barely old enough to have a learner's permit for a motorcycle. He looked up at Arnold a moment, making him feel like he was being sized up by a jungle cat looking over its next potential prey. Next to him, Phoebe huddled a little closer to Gerald for comfort.

Then the thug's eyes moved away down and over to the kids below and an impatient look crossed his face.

Suddenly a voice from behind Arnold called out, "Yo! There you are Billy!"

Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe all turned to see Simone waving to the thug from the doorway smiling a very flirty smile. Cookie was standing right behind her, blowing her gum with her usual wicked sneer on her face. Neither of them seemed to be carrying any books. No surprise.

"Yeah babe, I'm here," The thug—Billy—said smirking as he watched Simone walk down the stairs and then put his arm around her waist and kissed her in a way Arnold had only, until now, seen people in movies rated PG-13 and above kiss. Simone's boyfriend no doubt.

"What took you'se so long?" He asked her impatiently.

"Had to skip out on detention with that fat goof Wartz," She said snickering and brushing back her hair in an overtly feminine way.

"Ahem! And where do you think your going, young lady?" Came the voice of the so-called "fat goof" Principal Wartz from behind Arnold. He turned to watch the school principal practically march down the stairs of the school and stop on the bottom of the stairs. "Need I remind you two that you have detention to serve?"

"Sorry Wartz, but that ain't my bag," Simone said arrogantly as she straddled the bike to sit behind her boyfriend. Cookie was already hanging onto one of the others behind them, sticking her tongue out at the balding principal.

"Am I to understand that you both _refuse_ to serve my detention?" Wartz asked, narrowing his eyes at them, hands in his hips.

"That's right, you going to do something about it?" Simone asked, no doubt acting so brave in front of her main squeeze, making her sound even more arrogant.

"That's it! You two are hereby suspended from school for three days for blatant disrespect to school authority!" He declared pompously.

While both Cookie and Simone sarcastically acted like they were afraid, rolling their eyes and smirking to one another, Principal Wartz looked at Billy, who only regarded him as if he were a comical character. "As for you, William Nash, I thought I told you and your hooligans to stay away from this school building. Now you and your thugs get out of here and stick to messing up your own side of the tracks!"

"Sit on this, Wartz!" Billy Nash said, flipping Principal Wartz his middle finger. Cookie, Simone and the others in his gang roared with laughter. One of the gang members then tossed a lit cigarette at the principal's feet, making him jump a little. Then Simone put her arms around his waist and together, under the roar of several engines and a fog of dark exhaust smoke that made the Principal Wartz and several kids nearby cough, the gang speed away from the building, leaving behind a very red-faced and angry Principal Wartz, who turned and stomped up the stairs, muttering under his breath.

The kids around them began to mutter at what just happened.

"Man oh man," Gerald said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I thought those two girls were bad news before. That Billy Nash character looks like he's trouble and I mean Trouble with a capital T!"

Arnold nodded in glum agreement with his best friend. "Yeah, tell me about it." He remembered that uneasy feeling he'd gotten when he looked into Billy Nash's eyes.

Phoebe also nodded next to him. "Indeed." Deep down however, a small part of her felt nothing but relief over the idea that Cookie and Simone were now suspended for three days. She sighed slightly with a little apprehension lifted.

Arnold and Gerald both noticed this but said nothing.

Together all three of them made their way down the steps, not bothering to even look at any of the others and made their way in the direction of Helga's house.

On the way there, the three of them roughly followed the same path from yesterday.

Try as he could, the football-headed ten year old could not concentrate on the simple beauty of the world around him. Not the orange, yellow or red colors of the autumn leaves, or the birds chirping overhead, or even the clean feeling of the fall-time breeze blowing all around them.

Arnold's thoughts again drifted back to that moment yesterday when they were all happy together. The memories of Gerald and Phoebe holding hands and smiling shyly at each other, the look on Helga's face as they'd inched closer and closer together . . .

Today, neither Gerald nor Phoebe were holding hands or giving one another loving looks. One was too depressed to feel much happiness and the other felt nothing but sadness over the whole ordeal for his friends.

_It's funny how the loss of a single person can open up such a bit void in the lives of others,_ Arnold thought to himself as his right hand went into the pocket of his blue jacket and felt the texture of Helga's golden, heart-shaped locket.

_Damn it! Stop thinking about her like she's dead or something, football-head!_ A small voice in the back of his mind suddenly spoke up. _She's only in juvenile hall! She isn't gone for good!_

They passed the spot where Arnold ran into the tree and then, with a small pang in his heart, Arnold looked over as they walked right up to where Helga was arrested the day before. He stopped, looking right at the spot where he watched Helga being taken into police custody, where he'd looked at her sad face looking out from the back of a police car pleading with him with her intense blue eyes to do something—anything—to help her.

Arnold began to shake, but not because of the cool air_. I promised to do something for her. I promised to get her out of this mess somehow . . . I promised to . . . I promised to- _

Gerald and Phoebe paused when they heard a sound behind them. They turned to see that Arnold had dropped on his hands and knees on the sidewalk, the books he'd been carrying lay in a turned over pile next to him. He was visibly shaking and they could see the tears in his eyes.

"Arnold!" Gerald called out alarmed as he and Phoebe went over to him, worried he twisted his ankle or something. "Arnold, are you okay buddy?"

He didn't respond. Indeed, Arnold didn't really seem aware of them. Instead he looked at the spot where he found Helga's locket and he whispered softly, "I promised her."

"Huh?" Gerald asked confused and glancing over at Phoebe, who looked down at Arnold with a very sorrowful expression on her dainty face.

Arnold looked up at Gerald and Phoebe, unshed tears in his eyes and he repeated, in a soft tear-broken voice, "I p-promised her that I would help her . . . but I-I don't know w-what to do."

Then Arnold did something that neither of them could ever recall him doing before, at least in front of others. He cried openly and unabashed.

Arnold barely felt as Gerald put his hand on his right shoulder and Phoebe kneeled down next to him and hugged him, both of them trying in their own way to comfort him, as if they could take some of his own pain away from him. He felt very tired and sad, but also a little thankful to have them here also.

The three of them stayed that way for a few minutes, no other words were passed. No other words needed to be said.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	18. Part 17: Picking The Cherries

**Chapter Seventeen: "Picking the Cherries"**

After her meeting with the psychologist, Helga walked along the hallway on her way back to Dorm C. She was walking up the stairwell slowly. The interior of the stairwell she observed was fenced in. No doubt to prevent someone from falling over the rail—or from being pushed over.

She felt very conflicting feelings from her interview with Dr. Lang and was considering them as she walked.

Of course, being interviewed by a shrink was far from a first for Helga.

Helga remembered well the day, almost a year ago, that she was sent to Principal Wartz office after hitting Brainy once again for being his usual annoying self. The principal reminded her yet again that striking another student was a violation of school policy, which Helga protested with her usual flippant behavior. It was during this exchange that she was informed by both Principal Wartz and the then newly appointed school psychologist, Dr. Bliss that she would be scheduled for psychiatric therapy.

She remembered well—with a small amount of amusement now—how she'd felt about the whole thing.

Helga had been angry and embarrassed that she had to be subjected to such an invasion into her life—as well as somewhat concerned about what might happen if the school shrink were to somehow manage to get her secret love for a certain football-headed boy out into the open. She made up her mind to do whatever she could to prevent that, even coming up with a plan to make up stuff and talk about other matters to keep the focus away from her deepest and most closely guarded secret.

It didn't quite work out the way Helga had planned.

Dr. Bliss was not the pushover that Helga expected, nor someone who easily gave up. Helga was honestly surprised even now how, almost effortlessly, Dr. Bliss managed to make her way through Helga's defenses. She actually got Helga to talk about her life at home with her lame parents and perfect older sister Olga. Then she was somehow able to get Helga to willingly confess her secret love for Arnold through a combination of building trust by telling stories about her own past and listening to her own stories about her lame family, even being sympathetic to a degree.

More so, Dr. Bliss even told Helga that she didn't have to be ashamed of her secret feelings, or give up her secret till she was ready to tell Arnold someday. She'd even told Helga that her "obsession" was an okay way to express her feelings so long as she doesn't hurt anyone or herself.

From that point on, Helga and Dr. Bliss became friends of a sort. Dr. Bliss promised that Helga's secret was doctor/patient confidentiality and would never tell anyone and, as far as Helga knew, she was true to her word. Helga found in Dr. Bliss someone she felt she could trust. Probably because something about her personality and professional courtesy was open and inviting to Helga in a way that reminded her a little bit of Arnold.

As she passed by a large window with wire mesh over it, bright late afternoon sunlight shining into the hallway, Helga thought about Dr. Lang and frowned again. The resident psychologist of "Cherry Hell" was very little like Dr. Bliss.

Dr. Bliss would have gone out of her way to make Helga feel at home and slowly get her to open up to her. She also had a manner to her that was open and welcoming. She always smiled and spoke to Helga in a way that didn't make her feel she was being spoken down to or humored.

Dr. Lang however, made Helga feel more like she'd just been interrogated.

From the beginning of the interview, Helga got the sense that Dr. Lang didn't like her for some reason. Could it have been because of her alleged crime? Somehow Helga doubted that. The woman did manage to sound somewhat professional, although she did get a little sarcastic when Helga pushed a little. She'd just had a feeling when she looked at her, and their eyes meet, that Dr. Lang had something personal she was holding on to when she spoke to and looked at her, almost like she was studying her as if she were a bug collector looking at a rare insect.

It was also plainly obvious to Helga that Dr. Lang clearly did not believe that she was innocent. Of course, Helga knew that the woman probably heard sob stories all the time from other so-called "innocent people" and would be less inclined to accept her own denial of guilt. After all, she was the convicted one here, even if she really was innocent.

Helga sighed and walked on back to the door to Dorm C. She knocked then, a moment later came the now familiar buzz of a lock being opened and the metal door swung open. Miss Walker was there to unlock the cage door leading into the dorm, looking at Helga in a way that made her feel like shuddering for some reason.

"Did we enjoy our secession with the shrink, Pataki?" She asked her in that mocking sarcastic way, again using the medical "we" that made Helga frown. She turned her eyes away and looked ahead toward the dorm.

Miss Walker didn't open the fence door right away, but looked at her and said, in a sneering, unfriendly hiss, "Oh, that's right, you better not eyeball me, you little whore."

Helga gritted her teeth at the word, though she did not understand why the guard was being so obscene to her. She could feel Miss Walker's eyes still on her, looking at her with a hard, angry glare she could not really understand. Again Helga felt an urge to cringe but tried not to show it, afraid of displaying any sort-of weakness to this large terrible woman.

Finally, the guard opened the gate and said gruffly, "Inside." Helga went through somewhat quickly. She didn't look back but heard the gate close and lock behind her.

At one of the tables nearby, Trashmouth and Miranda Riley were playing a game of checkers. Trashmouth had a cigarette in her mouth. Her cell mate looked up and nodded for her to come over.

"Vel, how vas your interview vith ze good docktor, Frau Pataki?" Trashmouth said, grinning and speaking with a mock German accent.

Helga rolled her eyes and sat down in the third chair at the table. Miranda looked at her after moving one of the red pieces on the board to jump a black one.

"Is that lady always so friendly, or was she trying to make a good first impression?" Helga snorted sarcastically, crossing her arms on the table and leaning forward.

Trashmouth moved one of the black pieces forward and said, "Dr. Lang is okay, I suppose. She does tend to be a little bit nosy and wants to know how you are feeling all the time, but she means well enough."

"She talked to me sternly about the rules, but she didn't seem so bad to me," Miranda said, looking back at Helga after moving another piece.

Helga sighed and thought to herself about the way Dr. Lang had been with her in the office. _Perfect, that's all I need in here, someone else on my case._

"Ah, don't worry about her, Pataki," Trashmouth said, jumping three pieces in a row now. "Ole Dr. Lang isn't a hard-ass, like most of the guards here. She can be a bit fair sometimes, but a little misguided. She thinks she can 'save a few of us' (she said this as she did air quotations with her fingers on either side of her head like Mr. Simmons would have) and have us leave here sorry about our crimes."

"Yeah, just one problem with that," Helga muttered. "I didn't start any fire."

"And I didn't shoplift that radio and that other stuff," Miranda added seriously. "I was framed."

Trashmouth only smiled at both of them indulgently and then said, again in her mock German accent with a slightly raising of her eyebrow, "Ze good docktor has vays of making you two talk." She let out her nervous sounding giggle once again.

Miranda smiled a little and Helga rolled her eyes, but smirked slightly at her cell mate's silly behavior.

Suddenly the buzzer came to life cutting through all of the chatter around them.

"Third count," muttered Trashmouth, taking a puff of her cigarette before putting it out on the table and leaving a small black mark on the wood.

Helga walked over to the line of girls and stood between Trashmouth and Miranda as Bowers and Pena shoved other inmates into line and looked them over. Bowers didn't shove Helga as she walked by but gave her a small prissy smirk.

"All accounted for, Miss Walker!" Pena shouted out.

Miss Walker's stern voice came over the PA system again. "Okay, ladies, time for your exercise! Get your sweats on and fall into line at the fence! Move it!"

Helga and Trashmouth both went to their room to get the sweat pants and shirts they were given.

"What sort-of exercise is it?" Helga asked the inmate as she put on the blue jogging pants and sweater that she was also issued.

"Oh, its bullshit, just a couple runs around the grounds. The track is between the fences where they patrol at night. Twice around the place is about two miles, or so, more or less" Trashmouth told her.

Helga nodded as she finished dressing and went to the line with Shannon. Miranda was waiting for them near the back, looking worried. Helga gave her a reassuring smile, which seemed to relax the smaller inmate.

The fenced office door was opened and Bowers led them through, pass Miss Walker who looked at them with that icy, almost empty stare of hers. Helga didn't look at her, but again felt the large woman's stare.

Bowers led them back downstairs and turned off to the right where they then went down another hallway toward another door with green peeling paint. The door was apparently unlocked.

Helga and the other inmates were outside in the early evening air. The wind hit Helga through her sweat clothes and she began to shiver. Miranda did as well.

They found themselves being led down a thirty-foot walkway that was fenced in on the sides and the top like a tunnel. The light of the setting sun cast everything in its orange glow. At the end of this was a small brick building next to a couple of sliding gates in the two fences that separated Cherry Hell's grounds and the outside world where everyone else was free and living their lives. One side of this smaller building was inside the fenced in enclosure and a video camera was aimed right along their path, no doubt to alert whoever was on guard inside to the presence of approaching visitors.

"This is also the drop off exit," Trashmouth told Helga and Miranda. "When ya get released ya take this same walk on your way out. Past the outer fence is where your parents or friends pick you up. This is also where the laundry trucks arrive." She indicated the loading dock on other side of the fence, which was now closed for the evening.

A male guard came out of the small building next to the door, on the inside of the enclosure, and nodded to Bowers and Pena. Then he told another guard on the inside to open the gate at the end left side of the enclosure . . .

As they came to a stop at the gate near the small guardhouse building, Helga could see the fences were even taller looking that she'd first remembered from this morning. The first one was a regular six-foot high fence, with barbed wire strung in three long lines on angled metal posts at the top facing inside of the yard. The other fence was about ten feet high, with more barbed wire on the top on two v-shaped supports facing both inside and outside. Both of them looked very sinister. She glanced down and saw that the ten feet of space between these two fences were cemented like a road. The fences were both connected to this by a long thick pipe along the bottom of each fence running against the cement firmly in place.

A familiar unlocking buzzer sounded and the male guard opened the fence door. Bowers and Pena led them inside the loading dock and to the fence line; while the male guard, a tall, thin, but stern-looking man, with red hair went to a nearby blue-painted pickup truck, with spotlights on top of the cab and climbed in behind the wheel. Trashmouth explained that the truck was used to patrol at night inside the fences, along with following them during exercise to ensure no monkey business. The people in charge of this place obviously took no chances when it came to their charges.

From inside of the two fences, Helga looked up along the route they would jog and saw that it looked like a long way indeed. The fence screeched out like the Great Wall of China over several smaller rises and curving off in the distance. Set about every twenty feet, or so, just outside of the larger fences were light posts that resembled streetlights. Their light fixtures faced about ten feet over the fence. Helga didn't need to be a genius to guess that these all probably had bright light bulbs in all of them which shined down on the whole fence line at night.

The inmates all began to jog. Bowers and Pena ran up front while the rest of them kept up as best as they could in small groups behind them. About ten paces, or so, behind them, the pickup truck followed at a slow, but steady pace. Its driver was watching them all very carefully.

Helga kept a regular pace as well as she could, trying to remember what she learned in gym class about breathing in as she ran a certain amount of the way. Miranda was falling behind and Helga held her arm to help her keep up, and slowed up a little to stay with her. Trashmouth did the same, looking as if she was used to this run—which she probably was. When she was finally convinced that Miranda would not fall behind again, they'd already taken the run around the building once.

Helga took the opportunity now to examine Cherry Hell and the grounds beyond it in better detail.

Facing out the southern side of the fence, where they appeared to be now (Helga knew this from the position of the slowly setting sun on the horizon) appeared to be a side road, where those who were released are picked up. It probably led back to the main road somewhere. Beyond that were open fields, the smell of cow, or maybe horse dung could easily be picked up from the direction of the wind. Inside of this was apparently an area where an outside garden looked to be planted. At the moment, all that there was in the garden was brown, dead plants and yellowed weeds killed off by the cooler autumn nights. Trashmouth told her that it was a garden that the inmates were allowed to work on as part of their rehabilitation in the spring and summer time. The large, tented glass greenhouse stood at the far end of the fence, with just enough space to keep the building away from the fence.

Outside the eastern side of the juvenile prison were more open fields and farm country. These fields were also bare of anything but thick muddy-looking soil. Inside the fence, Helga got her first glimpse of the prison yard. It looked to be covered in cement on one side, with a couple of basketball goals set closer to the fence and benches set up closer to the building. Beyond it, the other half was more open soil and two soccer goals set up on opposite ends, one nearer the fence and the other near the building. All of the yard and the fence between were separated by about fifty yards of open ground. No danger of the inmates running for the fence in broad daylight, unless they were very stupid.

They made a turn at the far corner, where the dull, faded blue water tower loomed over them on the inside, in a closed off area connected to both the inner fence and the building by more fencing, topped off with wire. The only way in though one of these was locked off with a chain and padlock.

Finally, as they came to the northern side of the prison—the inside of which was also fenced in and totally blocked off to inmates—Helga could see that here only the bottom windows were fenced in like in the other parts of the prison. The upper two stories were fenceless regular windows, just like in Dr. Lang's office. No doubt this was the secured area of the facility where the warden and the other officers and administrators were. Inside were a few little trees and more open ground, that probably would have been freshly cut green grass during the spring and summer months. At the corner, just before turning west, was a small electrical station that connected to the power lines from the outside world. This station, like the water tower, was fenced in from the rest of the place and locked. Warning signs that read: **Danger High Voltage** in red letters against black was wired to the inside fences blocking this area off. Looking out, Helga could see a vast wooded area across another field of tall, waist-high dried weeds. The large power lines that probably ran back to Hillwood ran along parallel to the fence, though a good distance off in the middle of the field.

As they made their turn toward the western side of the fence, Helga, who was now breathing hard from the run, looked over at the inside of this area to see that this was the front of the building where she and the other new arrivals came in. They crossed the road between the two large gates and the main guard house. They ran on. Helga didn't look outside; already knowing exactly what was out there. On the inside though, where the road branched off between the visitors and admission entrances, Helga could now clearly see the place where the guards and visitors parked their cars. The public face of the building looked clean from this end.

_Of course,_ Helga thought to herself, _this is the end that everyone else sees. The ones who actually stay locked up here get the whole damn tour._

The run felt like it was taking an hour to finish, though in reality it had only been about forty minutes. Helga was winded, hot and sweaty from the exercise when they turned to the far side of the western side of Cherry Hell.

Finally, they'd finished two laps around and made it back to the drop off and pickup exit. The truck behind them came to a halt as the buzzer sounded and they were ushered back into the enclosed walkway to the building, most of them, especially the new arrivals, were tired and close to exhaustion.

They made it back to their dorm, again passing Miss Walker who watched them go pass with a nasty expression on her face.

"Well ladies, its shower time." Trashmouth said to Helga and Miranda.

Miranda looked a little worried. "Um, Shannon? Do we all _have_ to shower together?"

Helga already had that same thought before when she was cleaning out the bathroom. The showers were set in an open part of the bathroom with clear visibility. The idea of sharing a shower with a dozen girls or more was not one she was looking forward to. Earlier when she had to use the bathroom, in the stall with no door, it made her feel very vulnerable and naked also, especially with tough-looking girls passing by every so often glancing at her on the toilet seat. She shuddered at the loss of privacy.

Trashmouth smiled a little sympathetically at both of them, "Modesty isn't much of an option in this place, girls. We have to be watched constantly by the guards. Ya get used to it eventually."

Helga didn't want to get used to that, and neither did Miranda from the look of her. However, both of them realized that their options were somewhat limited.

Bowers walked around, shouting, "Shower up ladies. New Cherries go first!" There was a tone to her use of the slang term that Helga wasn't too sure she liked. She glanced at Trashmouth, who didn't quite meet her gaze, but who seemed thoughtful over something. Then she glanced at Helga and muttered before she walked away, "Watch after yourself, Pataki. You too, Riley."

Miranda looked scared now. Apparently she wasn't so naive anymore and could pick up on subtle hints and warnings. She looked at Helga for guidance, her brown eyes wide with concern.

_Criminy, why is she looking up to me like that?_ Helga thought worried. _Why does she expect me to be the strong one? Hell, I'm just as scared as she is!_

Finally Helga said, "No matter what stay by me, okay?" Miranda nodded, looking only a little bit better.

Helga went to get her towel, soap, laundry bag, and uniform. Packing all of these things up, she went toward the bathroom and meet Miranda at the doorway. They both went in and placed their things on the bench by the shower, where other piles of clothes were placed both underneath and on top.

Already, the other new inmates that Helga and Miranda came with were standing in small embarrassed groups near the shower heads, trying not to stare at or look at their fellow prisoners.

Helga sighed and began to undress, again feeling very vulnerable as the cool feeling of being completely nude came over her for the second time today. Her feet felt really cold against the concrete floor. She stepped into the soapy water in the shower area and walked over to one of the shower heads and cut on one of the knobs for the warm water. To her dismay, Helga found that the water that came out, while not cold, wasn't particularly warm either. Miranda joined her and they took turns getting wet before applying the soap they were issued.

Despite the semi-warm water, Helga was very pleased to be able to get clean. The bug spray that they'd sprayed on her and the others that morning was starting to make her itch. She knew the smell of it would always remind her of that moment. She applied extra soap to her body, as did Miranda.

Helga allowed Miranda to rinse off first. It didn't take her long. She got the sense that Miranda wanted to get this over with as much as she did. When it was her turn Helga closed her eyes and felt the water run from her recently shortened hair and down her body. It was a good feeling to be clean.

She was almost done rinsing off when she heard one of the girls scream. Then she heard laughter and harsh voices speaking all at once. Opening her eyes, Helga felt a yell come to her also when she saw the sight that greeted her.

About forty of the other inmates, most of them older ones were gathered in the bathroom, directly in front of the shower area blocking off any chance of escape. Bowers and Pena were in front. All of them were still dressed and they had towels in each of their hands, twisting them up and jeering at the new girls.

"Time to pick the Cherries!" One of them shouted from the back.

"Feel like crying, you little bitches?" Another said.

"You'se gonna cry when were done with ya, little Cherries!" Yet another snarling voice said.

More voices shouted obscenities and threatening words called out to them. Then they started snapping the towels at Helga and the new girls, using the twisted up towels like makeshift whips to lash at them. Miranda ducked behind Helga whimpering and Helga turned and hugged her closely, using her own body to block the smaller girl from their sadistic torturers. She closed her eyes as she felt one of the towels lash her lower back, and another hit her right shoulder, leaving painful marks that she was sure would be bruised. Another hit her left buttock hard.

Helga turned her head slightly to look back with one eye. The inmates were laughing and jeering at them loudly, but none of them were crossing into the shower area but standing at the edge and snapping the towels at them. The sound of their laughter echoed off the walls of the bathroom.

Another lash hit Helga in the right cheek, just narrowly missing her eye by inches. Helga turned her head back toward the far wall, keeping Miranda between it and her own naked body—which endured several more lashes from the towels in the back and her right arm. Her cheek throbbed, as did everywhere else she got hit.

"OH, MY GAWD! I DON'T WANNA BE HERE!" A sobbing girl screamed out loud.

The inmates hooted and cheered. The towels stopped slapping at them.

One shouted, "We got us a winner here!"

Another harsh voice said laughing, "And it's the little brunette bitch by twenty lashes!"

Now the girls chanted, _"Cherries! Cherries! Cherries!" _Bowers and Pena were leading the chant.

The sobbing black-haired girl cried harder and slumped down to her knees, covering her face in her hands. Her back, arms and legs were covered in marks that were sure to become bruises tomorrow. Her whole body shook with her sobs.

"T-THIS IS A M-M-MISTAKE! I'M S-SORRIE!" She wailed. "I W-WANT MY MOMMIE AND D-DADDIE!"

The older inmates all taunted her sobs.

"I had your daddy, he wasn't that good," one of the more obscene inmates taunted. The clown earned herself some laughs as the crowd began to disperse.

The hazing ended as quickly as it had begun.

The girl had her arms across her chest, hands on her shoulders, rocking back and forth on her knees shaking in sobs. One of the other new Cherries, the girl Helga recognized as the poor unfortunate that got the medical search that morning, came over and knelt next to her, putting a comforting arm around her trying to calm her. The girl flinched at the contact at first, but then turned and hugged the other girl, crying into her chest hard.

Helga was still in a state of shock over the whole incident as she pulled away from Miranda Riley. "Are you okay?"

Miranda nodded meekly and looked wide-eyed at Helga. "Oh my God! Helga, you're bleeding!"

Helga blinked and raised a hand to her cheek where she was hit and came up with a small trickle of blood. She looked scared now.

One of the older of the new Cherries walked over and looked at Helga. "Don't worry about it," she told her calmly. "You'll have worse when you start having periods. That's nothing but a little scrape. Hold a little toilet tissue on it for about ten minutes and it'll clot over."

Absently, Helga nodded and looked at the others. All of them were covered in marks from the towels. A few of them were bleeding too, the red of their blood mixing with the water on their nude bodies making them seem worse than the minor scrapes they were.

"They were trying to hurt us," Miranda said, sounded very scared. She was shaking also as if she had the chills.

The inmate who talked to Helga shook her head. "No, just scare us. They were trying to make one of us cry like that poor thing there," she explained pointing at the sobbing girl.

Trashmouth entered the room now, bringing a roll of toilet tissue with her. She paused, looking at Helga and winced. "They got you good didn't they, roomie?"

Helga scowled. She realized now what the concerned look was about. What she didn't understand was why on earth it had happened. "What the hell was all that about?" Helga asked her stepping out and almost slipping on the tiles with her wet feet, but she managed to keep her balance somehow.

Trashmouth tore some tissue off and handed Helga some of it, who snatched it out of her hand quickly, then explained. "It's sort-of a tradition here at Cherry Hell that the others do to new Cherries. They call it 'Picking the Cherries.' What they do is come in here and start picking on the new arrivals and keep at it until one of you starts crying and has a fit. Mostly it's for betting purposes."

Helga processed this information horrified by what she heard. She looked back at the poor girl who was now being helped up and put the toilet paper over the scratch on her cheek. Now she understood another reason this place was nicknamed "Cherry Hell." For her, Miranda, and the other new arrivals, it was indeed hell.

And this has only been the first day. What other slices of hell were waiting for her tomorrow? Not to mention the day after that . . . and the day after that? Helga closed her eyes, not wanting to know, but knowing that she was absolutely helpless to prevent it from coming.

If that wasn't the definition of hell, Helga didn't know what it was.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	19. Chapter Eighteen: A Cry In The Night

**Chapter Eighteen: A Cry in the Night**

Sleep was not going to come easy to Helga as she lay back on her bunk. Her back was still sore from the places where the towels hit her bare skin. She wiggled on the thin mattress in an effort to try and get comfortable to no avail. She knew already that the marks on her back and left buttock were on their way to becoming very nasty bruises. Her cheek was sore at the touch. She lay there, under the cover she had been provided, stripped down to a pair of shorts and a tank top to sleep in. The pillow she lay against smelled strongly of some sort-of industrial detergent.

Not too long after the "Cherry picking" in the shower, Helga returned to the room that her and Trashmouth shared, her cheek still throbbing from where it had been hit by the towel. At least the bleeding had stopped.

Trashmouth took a small hand-held mirror from under her bunk and handed it to Helga to show her the bruise when Helga asked if it looked bad. What Helga saw when she looked into the mirror made her blink and look away a moment. The bruise looked like it would soon turn black and blue; a scab was forming over the split where the blood came from. But that alone wasn't what made Helga wince. It was the sight of her, with her pigtails gone and hair cut short that disturbed her. Her pink bow, the one thing that reminded her of who she was on the outside, was now in a box somewhere downstairs in storage. The person who looked back at Helga sadly was virtually unrecognizable from the strong-willed young girl with the pigtails that she saw just the other day in the mirror before she rushed off to school.

Now, as she lay on her back, looking up at the bottom of Trashmouth's bunk, she couldn't get that image of herself out of her head. She wondered what everyone at school would have thought of Helga G. Pataki if they could see her now. More important to her, what would Arnold think of her if he saw her like this?

Helga closed her eyes willing sleep to take her. She had no idea how long she laid there, her brain running over several thoughts at once.

She knew that the lights were cut off every night at nine o'clock from Shannon. Indeed, Trashmouth told her about a lot of things about Dorm C at night, some of which Helga would have preferred not to have heard about.

Among these was the fact that sometimes at night, rats would come out and crawl around the cellblock. Prison rats, she'd called them. Said that whole colonies of these roamed Cherry Hell, mostly down in the laundry and the cafeteria and other dark places on the first floor, but at night find the courage under the cover of darkness to roam the dorms.

"Big ones," she explained in detail. "Some of them I even heard get to be as big as tomcats. Really mean ones too. Once I heard about a girl here in Dorm A who found a stray puppy that wondered into the exercise yard somehow and snuck it into her dorm. That night the rats came out smelling the puppy and ganged up on it and bit it to death, then ate most of it before wake-up call."

Having already encountered one of the infamous "prison rats" in the shower drain that morning, Helga shivered after hearing that, despite the fact that it was far from cold in the cellblocks. The heat from the furnace, running already (it was only early autumn, but very cool outside at night), made the whole dorm feel too hot and muggy.

A girl's screaming down at the end of the dorm made Helga's eyes open slightly, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

Trashmouth told her earlier that day all about "The Screamer." She was a girl who was convicted of the murder of her stepfather. He'd been an abusive alcoholic and liked to hit her a lot. Finally he must have done it one too many times because she killed him. She'd cut her stepfather's throat while he was asleep and gotten blood all over her. The girl had bad dreams about it, Trashmouth explained to her. Sometimes crying things out in her sleep like "so much blood!" and other things.

That story alone made Helga's blood run cold. The sound of The Screamer yelling and crying in her sleep made it all the worse. She covered her ears with her hands and turned on her right side trying to tune out the terrible yelling. It gradually died down and ended, the poor girl must have either awakened from whatever nightmare she'd had, or just simply stopped dreaming.

Helga tried to focus her thoughts on Arnold, of his smiling oblong face, or his gentle voice and sweet half-lidded gaze. Trying with all of her might to think of some pleasant memory of him to focus on, anything to try and get some sleep.

Her mind kept drifting back to memories of yesterday afternoon before she was arrested; her and Arnold walking together behind Phoebe and Gerald, all four of them happy together. The way Arnold looked, when he ran into small tree and fell over into a pile of autumn leaves. The way he told her how he'd been worried about her when the fire broke out. That last thought made her heart flip and a small smile cross her face. Then she remembered that he wanted to tell her something.

Idly Helga wondered what that would have been. A small, hopeful part of her mind told her that he might have been ready to tell her that he was in love with her and ask her to be his girlfriend. Of course, she knew that was probably unlikely, no matter how much she hoped and pray it were. Even if Arnold did ask her that, what on earth would she have done? Would she have said yes and then given him the kiss of his life right then and there?

Helga toyed with that last thought when she heard the sound of footsteps right outside of the door. She closed her eyes all but a fraction to appear like she was asleep.

A shadow crossed over the window of the door and she glanced down slightly to see Walker pause at the doorway, looking in. Helga didn't dare move. Walker stared at her for a long while before moving on, apparently believing that Helga was indeed asleep . . . or so she hoped.

The footsteps went on for a moment before Helga heard a door creaking open. It sounded like it was going on in the next room. Helga blinked and listened, curious despite herself.

From behind the concrete wall separating the rooms, Helga heard some muffled sounds that sounded a little like muffled struggling and then some whispered words spoken harshly. It had to have been Walker, but Helga had no way of knowing what was being said, it was too low to hear. Whatever it was, it didn't sound very good at all.

Then there came the sound of a girl crying, though it too was so low that Helga barely heard it. This was followed by more softly muttered words and then a muffled wail, almost like a scream that was being covered up and more crying, almost sobbing. Then, without warning, the sound of a loud slap could be heard from the next room. Then another and more muffled crying followed by more gruff whispered words and then a thump.

Helga had no idea what was going on, but for some reason, those sounds made Helga feel extremely uneasy, way worse that the crying of The Screamer did. The sounds made it plainly clear that someone was being slapped around next door . . . or worse, beaten up. Yet, for some reason, that alone wasn't what seemed to bother Helga. She didn't quite have the thoughts for it, but something really bad had just taken place, and was still taking place. She could feel it deep down in the pit of her stomach.

Now Helga heard the sound of soft, unobstructed crying and a door opening and closing again. She closed her eyes again only slightly and looked down at the door. Walker went by, a small terrible looking smile shown on her face. Her eyes seemed distant and vacant. The guard passed by without pausing.

Next door the sounds of the inmate's sobbing terribly filled her soul, making Helga cross her arms over her chest and clench her shoulders as she lay on her side miserably. She could almost feel as if it had been _her_ slapped around. Not far away, The Screamer once again yelled out in her sleep, making her flinch also. Helga did her best to try and block out the sounds of both suffering girls.

Sleep would be a very long time in coming.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_


	20. Part 19: The Bear, The Road Gang And The...

**Part Nineteen: The Bear, The Road Gang, And The White Wolf**

At approximately 6 AM the lights inside all of the cells in Dorm C came on as well as the lights outside in the main room. The buzzer sounded loudly waking Helga up from what little sleep she managed to get her first night in Cherry Hell.

She groaned and tried to put the pillow over her head as Trashmouth jumped down from her bunk and began to quickly shake Helga.

"Rise and shine, Pataki!" She said in a mock cheerful voice as she tried to get Helga to wake up. "Time for first count in five minutes, so we need to get up and get ready."

Helga sat up and yawned. She blinked and opened her eyes to see Shannon looking at her with a touch of sympathy behind her glasses. "Rough night I take it?"

Helga only nodded at first, then she looked up at Trashmouth who didn't seem to be all that restless. "How the hell did you manage to sleep through all of that noise last night?"

"Well, you get used to it after a while," Trashmouth said to her as she began to put on her faded dungaree uniform.

Helga stood up wincing once again from the bruises she had after the "Cherry picking" and began to put on her uniform also. Then she paused and looked at Trashmouth and asked her, "How long have you been here anyhow?"

"Oh, about a year now," the redhead answered as she lit a cigarette. "I'm up for parole eligibility in about six months." She offered the pack to Helga. "Want one?"

Helga looked at it and said raising a side of her unibrow, "No, I don't smoke."

Her roomate only smiled with little humor and said, "No? Wait a while, this place drives you to bad habits." She put the cigarettes in her shirt pocket.

After she finished dressing, Helga followed Trashmouth out into the dorm.

As the girls began to line up for first count, Helga looked over to see a small, thin girl with shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair and large green eyes emerge from the room next to theirs.

The girl had a swollen-looking lip and what looked like a bruise forming on her right cheek. She walked very slowly and cringed when a couple of inmates shouted nearby. Her eyes darted over quickly as if afraid of being attacked. She turned and looked at her.

Helga felt a chill throughout her body when her eyes meet the small girls. She looked at Helga a moment, her large blue eyes unblinking, then looked down, as if she were ashamed to face her.

'_What did Walker do to her?'_ Helga asked herself. It was obvious that the large guard had hurt her, but a deeper part of her being told her that something more had happened.

Something terribly wrong.

Then another part of her mind spoke up and asked, _Are you sure you want t_o _find out?_ Again Helga shook as though feeling a chill.

"Get in line blondie!"

Helga was shoved roughly from behind by Bowers who frowned at her, dareing her to say something. Biting back whatever she wanted to say, Helga sent Bowers a glare and walked over to stand in line between Miranda and Trashmouth.

As the two Scabs took their first count, the doorway to the dorm opened up as the did the gate of the enclosed office and Helga watched as a large black girl came into the dorm. She was a thick, round-raced girl with dark brown eyes and gleaming white teeth. Judging from her overall demeanor and the way she carried herself, this girl looked like the kind-of girl who could outwrestle Tourvalt of Wolfgang.

"Hey Shannon, who's that?" Helga whispered.

Trashmouth looked over and nodded, "Oh her, that's Millicent Parker, but everyone in her calls her 'The Bear'. She not really the most sociable person you know. Most people try to stay out of her way. She's here for beating up a fourteen year old boy with a baseball bat."

The name "The Bear" definitely fit as the girl looked very tough and large, but not in the fatty manner like Harold or Big Patty. This girl was thick and it appeared to be all muscle. Her prison shirt had no sleeves and her arms were standing out bare. They looked like the arms of someone who lifted weights.

The Bear stood at the end of the other line near the front and waited bored along with everyone else.

"All accounted for Miss. Foster!" Bowers called out to the guard Helga meet yesterday. Helga was somewhat thankful that Miss. Walker was apparently off duty today.

Foster's voice came over the PA system, "Okay ladies, time for breakfast, single file behind the dorm leaders."

After lining up behind Bowers and Pena, the inmates of Dorm C all walked out in single file out through the enclosed guard station and out the main door to the Mess Hall. It was still dark outside, and only slowly turning a little lighter through the windows, because of this the overhead lights were on. One of the long lightbulbs flickered near the far end of the room.

"Humm, wonder what's on the menu today," Trashmouth started with her witty tone. "Could it be toxic waste and raw sewage, mixed in with a little rat poison for flavor?"

Helga tried to smile at that, but her mind on the view outside, not that early morning had too much to look at. '_Twenty-four hours ago, I was passing_ _Arnold's house on the bus coming here._' She thought sadly, remembering. Arnold's lovely oblong face suddenly sprang into her mind a moment and she almost started to sob.

"Pataki? Helga? Are you ok?" Miranda asked her shaking her arm a little from behind, concerned.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I-I'll be ok," Helga said sighing.

Miranda only looked at her a moment, then nodded in understanding and said, "Yeah, I know. I miss my mom and dad. My friends at school too. I keep wondering if our friends miss us much?"

Helga thought about it some. Her friends (if she liked to refer to the rest of her classmates as friends) were probably having the time of their lives now that the class bully "Helga The Horrible" was locked away in juvie. Rhonda might have even had a party in honor of the occasion. She knew what they all thought of her, despite the fact they all played together after school in Gerald Field or hung out often.

Of course, Helga couldn't find it in her heart now to blame all of them. She did do quite alot to keep up her appearance as a bully. She yelled, and was bossy, rude and sarcastic much of the time. Deep down, she knew she had nobody to blame but herself for all of that.

Phoebe would miss her, that was the only thing she was sure of. Despite the way she treated her as a sidekick and subordinate sometimes, Helga did think of Phoebe as her best friend and knew Phoebe thought the same of her. And she understood Helga in ways that sometimes surprised even her on occasion. Nobody else had ever seen through her bully persona and saw the person she was underneath as Phoebe did.

Other than Arnold that is.

It was what Arnold was thinking now that came to Helga's mind. She could still see the looks of worry and sorrow on his face in the courtroom, all for her. What was he thinking right now? Did he still believe in her? Was he really so sad for her, or was it all just in her imagination?

"Pataki?"

Helga blinked and realized that she was thinking too much. Trashmouth was about six steps ahead of her looking back at her amused. She was holding up the line and Miranda was looking at her worried, while several other tough inmates were giving her sour looks and telling her in, no uncertain terms, that she was holding up the line and that she needed to move her skinny ass.

As she went forward she muttered, "Criminey, I'm getting as bad as the Football-head."

Trashmouth giggled her nervous-sounding giggle and said, "Usually people don't start spacing out till class time."

Helga sighed, "Sorry, just had a lot on my mind that's all." She picked up a tray and a bowl with the plastic utensils.

The redhead nodded and turned back to the breakfast food before them and looked up at the annoyed inmate behind the counter. "Well Sutherland, another culinary masterpiece for us today, I see." She handed out her bowl.

As the skinny inmate used a big spoon to glob a heap of very runny-looking oatmeal into the bowl, she took the cigarette that she had from her mouth and, looking at Trashmouth annoyed tipped the long ash on the end into her bowl. "Eat shit O'Feir."

Trashmouth only smirked and said, "Only if you deep-fry it for me, Sutherland." She winked and walked down the line whistling some obscure tune.

Helga had to hide a smile in order to keep from having ashes put into her own oatmeal as well. She was amused by the short, freckled-faced girl, despite what she knew about her past. Helga actually liked Shannon O'Feir. The girl took no crap off of anyone and still kept up her unique sense of humor somehow.

After getting the rest of the breakfast, which consisted of the oatmeal, some biscuits, scrambled eggs, a glob of under-cooked grits and some greasy-looking bacon with chocolate milk in a carton to drink, Helga, Miranda and Trashmouth all went over to the table from the day before where PG sat, cooing into her shirt and smiling.

"Hey PG," Trashmouth said, tossing her the biscuit from her plate as she sat down across from her. When the small cooing sound came from PG's shirt, she added, "Hey Tony, how's the wing?"

PG smiled and said, "Tony said 'hello' and that his wing is getting much better."

Miranda sat next to PG and Helga next to Shannon. Helga gave PG her biscuit also and so did Miranda. PG thanked them again and put all of the biscuits in her small bag and tucked it into her shirt. The pigeon cooed again inside her shirt.

Helga looked down at the food, which still didn't look very appealing, but her hunger was so great she didn't care at all and dug in egearly.

PG sighed, "We have the roadgang duty today." Trashmouth looked up at her and nodded. "Yep, Walker must be on her time of the month."

"What the heck is 'the roadgang'?" Helga asked taking a spoonful of oatmeal. It wasn't very sweet, too little sugar.

"Well, they used to call it the 'chain gang' but that's not very nice anymore, plus we don't actually wear chains neither. They take us out so we can clean up some streach of highway that has been littered up." Trashmouth told her.

Miranda smiled a little, "Well that doesn't sound so bad, at least we're outside and can enjoy some fresh air."

Trashmouth only snorted, "Yeah right, you try and enjoy it while your picking up garbage with nothing but work-gloves in October weather for four hours."

"It's going to be a cold one today," PG informed them. "A couple of bluejays told me yesterday in the yard. They also said snow was coming soon too, in about a week."

Miranda looked at PG with a mixture of wonder and worry, "Are you serious?"

PG nodded and continued eating, then cooed something to Tony and nodded at the coo that came back.

Helga wondered if PG really thought she was being serious. If so she really needed to go talk to that psychologist downstairs for a while.

Trashmouth only said, looking at Miranda and Helga seriously, or as serious as she seemed to get, "If PG says a bird told her, you better believe it. She's never been wrong yet."

The girls finished breakfast fifteen minutes later and were ordered to go back to the dorm to get their coats. After doing so, they were led down the same path they took to the gate from last night for their run.

The sun was only now starting to rise outside and the first golden glow of the day began to appear. It was cold outside. The inmates could all see their breath and the girls all put their hands in their pockets for warmth. Helga buttoned up the thin prison coat made of blue jean material, which like the rest of their prison clothes, did little to offer much warmth against the cold.

The blue van that brought Helga and Miranda there awaited them beyond the gate. Behind it was a white pickup truck with the red words **HILLWOOD** **JUVENILE CORRECTIONS** stenciled across the side with four male prison guards standing near it. All of whom looked at the inmates sternly through probing eyes. One of these was a middle-aged man with a white cowboy hat with a gleaming silver badge on the front. His eyes were hidden behind a set of mirrored glasses.

The inmates all climbed aboard the van, past a heavy-set female driver who looked very bored to be here. Helga, Miranda and Shannon all sat near the back. Helga took the window seat while Miranda sat next to her and Trashmouth sat with PG in the seat in front of them.

As the last of the inmates came aboard, so did Miss Foster and another female guard who sat up front behind the gate closing off the rest of the van from the front. The van began to roll, with the white pickup and the male guards following closely behind them. Helga watched from the screen-covered window as the van rolled down the small joining road and onto the main road, heading east towards the open country.

There was very little to look at out this way but farm houses and some pumpkin patches with some scarecrows standing in the middle. Crows and other black birds sat all around them in huge numbers eating away at the corn or pumpkins that were ready for harvesting. PG smiled and waved at them from the other window.

They passed more farmhouses with various fields, some of them with hay bales. Others with cows, goats and horses eating away at the drying yellow and brown cud on the ground.

The van drove on for what seemed almost like an hour. All the while, the sun rose and then started to disappear beneath the dark clouds on the horizon. Helga watched outside as they turned on another stretch of road that a sign told her was highway seventy-six.

Finally the van slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road. Miss Foster and the other female guard opened the gate and told them to fall out into a single file line and to get a pair of work gloves and some bags from the boxes up front. As Helga stepped outside behind Miranda, holding onto a bag and some work gloves, she looked around to take in the sights.

They were all standing on the side of a double lane road, between a couple of empty fields, fenced off with barbed wire. Both sides of the road were thickly covered in garbage ranging from cans and soda bottles to paper wrappers, newspapers and plastics of all sorts. Near where they were standing was a sign that read: "_Please Keep Our Highways Clean_" which had what looked like several bullet holes in it and a spatter from where someone apparently threw some takeout food on it.

Foster looked at them, "Okay ladies, our job is to clean up this road before noon. This half (she pointed to the inmates nearby) across the road and join Miss Forrester. The rest of you will start on this side and start working. Let's go ladies, move it!"

Helga watched as some of the inmates followed the other guard, while two of the four male guards took positions on the road, one on each side in the front. She could see that both of them, as well as the two behind them near the vehicles, has sidearms. The one with the mirrow sunglasses had a rifle with a high-powered scope on it, which he held, butt against his right hip as he chewed on a weed looking on.

She put on her work gloves and bending over began to pick up the garbage. She winced because of the sore bruises she had.

The garbage was sticky and smelly. Some of them, particularly the pop bottle, had bugs and fire ants crawling on them. Helga had to watch her step in the ankle-high grass because she almost stepped in an ant hill. Some of the garbage was old food that looked like it was rotting.

Miranda let out a squeal of shock as a field mouse popped out from under a cheeseburger wrapper she picked up and ran into the tall grasses beyond the fences. Luckily Miranda wasn't bitten. Seeing that made Helga more careful about the way she picked things up. As it was, as they cleaned and made their way down the highway, Helga found a couple of dead snakes, one flattened on the road and another laying near the side with its head crushed.

As they finished, they moved up along the highway with the guards following behind watching on carefully, the van and pickup truck remained in their place. Another trustee came along with them, with a bucket full of water and a metal cup for the inmates who went thirsty.

After an hour of bending over and picking up garbage in the cold morning air, Helga's fingertips were numb, however the work made her build up a sweat that forced her to unbutton her coat. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

Not long afterwards, they had worked their way down to the an area where some bushes and trees with dying brown leaves were. The male guards kept a close eye on them just in case any of them had any ideas of running.

It was then that Helga realized she had to go to the bathroom badly. She raised her hand and stood up, wincing. "Ma'am, I have to pee." She told Miss Foster.

"Go over to the bushes, but keep your head where I can see it, understand?" The guard told her evenly. Helga nodded and went over, standing behind the bushes being certain to keep her head over the top of them and lowering her pants, and a moment later feeling much better.

As Helga pulled up her pants and underwear, she suddenly got the feeling she wasn't alone. She looked over near the trees and her breath caught in her throat, though her heart pounded hard in her chest.

A white snow wolf with a patch of dark fur on its left ear stood near the trees, no more than about ten feet from her. It looked at her with light blue eyes and its head tilted.

'_Oh my God, oh my God!_' Helga thought panicked a moment then started to back up. She heard a stick and some leaves crunch underneath her foot making her flinch. '_Please just stay where you are,'_ She thought keeping her eyes on the wolf.

The wolf didn't growl as she expected but only opened its mouth and let out its tongue in a friendly dog-like way. Helga blinked at this.

"Pataki!" Miss Foster called to her. "What are you doing? Get back to work if your done!"

Helga's eyes moved to Miss Foster a moment, then back to the wolf. It was gone. She blinked again, '_What the- Where did it go?'_

"What are you looking at?" The guard asked her, looking down at the trees suspiciously.

"Oh, n-nothing ma'am," Helga said, still trying to make sense of what she saw, or if she saw it. It was possible that the work was making her over active imagination go into overdrive.

"Back into line then," Foster said, giving the trees one last look before leading Helga back to her assignment.

As Helga put the gloves back on, she realized that she neither heard the wolf appear or disappear. Of course given that it was a forest animal and a predator, it could know how to sneak up on potential prey. Yet, its demeanor hadn't been vicious at all, more like curious.

She shook her head. '_Snap out of it, Helga Ole girl. Next thing you know you'll be talking to pigeons also.'_

Deciding she must have been imagining the whole encounter, she resumed her job and after a while forgot all about the wolf.

About another hour later, Helga was sore again. The inmates seemed to have cleaned up about a mile worth of highway in two hours, with another mile to go they were told.

Nearby several large buzzards were picking at a dead dog in the middle of the road. The birds all flapped their wings threateningly at them and one squawked loudly. PG squawked back and then shook her head. "Buzzards are not too friendly. Every one of them I ever talked to has been very rude," she explained to them.

Helga could smell the rotting, maggoty carcass and felt the urge to throw up.

Bang!

The girls all jumped as the male guard with the mirror glasses fired his rifle into the air. The buzzards all flew off.

"That's telling them, LeBeau," Trashmouth said, picking up a yahoo soda bottle and giggling. Then she looked at Helga and Miranda and muttered, "That's Guard LeBeau, head outside guard. Though he's also know as 'The man with no eyes' because he never takes off those shades, even when its cloudy like today."

"No taking O'Feir! Keep working, one more hour to go ladies!" Foster told them.

Helga went over to a nearby road sign which was green with white letters that read: **Hillwood 25 Miles**.

'_Arnold was only twenty-five miles away, probably having class right about now. Phoebe too.'_ She thought to herself. She sighed missing them both very much again and thinking about happier times.

She was brought out of her thoughts when a sports car full of teenage hooligan slowed down and tossed a styrofoam cup full of some soda which hit Helga squarely in the back of the head, and spilling the sticky drink all over her clothes. The teenage boys all laughed and she thought she saw one of the boys high-five another one as they sped off.

Helga growled as several of the inmates laughed at her expense as well. She picked up the remains of the cup and put it into her almost full bag.

Finally, after a little more work, they reached a crossroads. The signs nearby read: **HWY 40**. Another below it read: **Speed Limit 55 MPH**.

The van and the pickup pulled up behind them. Miss Foster blew her whistle. "Okay times up! Good job ladies, I hope you enjoyed the outdoors." Several of the inmates gumbled but Miss Foster only smiled, though not really sarcastically, but rather like she suspected they would complain. Although strict, she did not seem to be like Miss Walker from Helga's observations.

The girls all put their gloves back in the boxes which were now laying outside the van.

Still sticky, Helga went with the others back onto the van and sat back in their seats. She closed her eyes as she sat down, exhausted and sore all over. Leaned her head against the fenced window and yawned.

Just as the van pulled away and turned back up the now clean stretch of highway, Helga looked out at the trees and bushes nearby again and blinked. The wolf was standing there, looking at the van as it passed, almost as if it were look right at Helga with its pale blue eyes.

"Miranda!" Helga whispered excited. "Do you see it?" She turned to get Miranda's attention.

The girl looked tired and blinked, "Huh? What?"

"The wolf!" Helga whispered and pointed looking back but found herself seeing nothing but the bushes again.

"Wolf?" Miranda blinked, looking out the window. "I don't see anything." She looked at Helga a little worried. "Maybe you were just tired?"

"B-but it was there!"

"QUIET DOWN THERE!" Foster shouted out. "ONE MORE WORD AND SOMEONE IS GOING TO SOLITARY WHEN WE GET BACK!" She sounded a little put out also.

Helga kept quiet and sighed closing her eyes and leaning her head against the window again exhausted. After a few moments in which she began to question what she saw again, her eyelids became heavy and Helga fell asleep.

She wouldn't wake up again till they got back to Cherry Hill fifty minutes later.

_**To Be Continued...**_

_More about "The Bear" in the next chapter...more coming soon, I promise at least two updates a month, my New Year's Resolution to all of you, my favorite readers and fanfic fanatics! -D.R._


	21. Part 20: Writing To Helga

**Part Twenty: Writing to Helga**

About the same time that Helga was finishing up her work assignment at the highway intersection, Arnold was sitting at his usual desk near the front of Mr. Simmon's classroom. He was looking up blankly at the blackboard as the overly-cheerful teacher began explaining how to use decimals in long division. Next to him, Gerald had his head propped up on his arm, his eyes were closed and a small line of droll could be seen on the left side of his mouth. He snored lightly.

Arnold's mind was, as usual, not on where he was or what he was doing. Instead his thoughts were dwelling on the empty seat behind him next to Phoebe and the girl he missed more than he ever thought he would admit to himself.

Turning his head, he looked back at Phoebe, who was also looking up at the board. However her small brown eyes were as unfocused as Arnold had ever seen them as she stared off into space. Then he saw her turn her head and look at the empty seat beside her and let out a sigh.

Her dark brown eyes shifted to meet Arnold own green ones. They both understood the same loss as they each asked the same question with their eyes, _'Are you alright?'_

Both of them nodded once sadly and then turned their attentions back to the blackboard. Arnold wondered, as he looked at Mr. Simmons writing and talking at the same time, if Phoebe was taking in any of the subject at all.

'_Knowing Phoebe, she's probably already got this stuff figured out,'_ he thought idly. As for himself, Arnold worried about failing his next test.

There was a knock on the door.

Mr. Simmons looked over unperturbed at being interrupted in the middle of class and said, "Come in."

In came a short, fifth grade girl with round glasses and shoulder-length wavy brown hair. She was carrying a stack of white envelopes in her arms.

"Oh yes, the school photos," Simmons said smiling and taking them from the girl. "Yes, thank you Allison. I'm glad to see your feeling much better today." The girl nodded and left, smiling shyly.

The balding teacher turned to look at them smiling, "Everyone, listening ears. . ." Arnold quickly shook Gerald who blinked and yawned as he woke from his short nap. Mr. Simmons continued, "I'm pleased to announce that our class yearbook pictures have just come back. I'm passing them back to you now and I'm sure that all of them are just wonderful."

A coupled of kids disagreed.

"Aww, this picture makes me look fat!" Harold whined from the back.

"You know Harold, they say the camera puts on twenty pounds or so," Sheena suggested trying to help.

"Hey did you see the face I made into the camera," Sid laughed to Stinky who looked at it and joined in. Both he and Sid had, since first grade, made faces into their yearbook photos. It was sort-of their little tradition.

"I recon that there is about the funniest gal-danged face you've ever made into the camera, Sid." Stinky said in his dull, nasal voice, laughing.

Rhonda could be heard saying, "Ugh, my hair is all wrong."

"Oh, I think your hair is perfectly lovely my pretty perfect pet," Curly said looking over her shoulder and stroking her hair from behind.

"Ugh! Get away from me you disgusting little _troll_!" Rhonda said pulling away from him as if he carried some contagious disease and shoving him. "Shoo! Shoo!"

"Oh comeon, can I have one if you don't like them? I can put it under my pillow and dream about you, or add them to the omague to you that I am building in my garage." Curly suggested in what he assumed was a coy manner.

Rhonda looked sick at the idea, "Forget it, Curly. Go hump someone else's leg you nasty little piece of _ick_!"

A lot of the class snickered at that, including Gerald, who looked at his picture and frowned. "Man Arnold, I can see the grape juice stain on my shirt where Timberly spilled it." He turned the photo and pointed at the small stain on his sleeve.

Arnold gave Gerald's photo a quick glance and said, after a quick review, "Well it's not that noticeable unless you have it right in the light."

"Well, if my mom frames one, I'll be sure to tell her to hang it in the hall closet," Gerald joked, making Arnold smile a little.

Then he looked over and saw Mr. Simmons look at one of the envelopes, gave it a sad look and set it down on top of his desk. Arnold didn't have to be a genius like Phoebe to know that the folder contained Helga's pictures.

He sighed looking down and opening the folder with his name written on the top right corner in blue ink. Arnold pulled out a stack of photos and looked at them. All of his photos were almost exactly alike, with him smiling and looking ahead with his usual thoughtful gaze.

Arnold's hand went to the pocket of his jeans where a certain golden, heart-shaped locket rested for safe keeping. In a small way, Arnold now had to smile at the idea of Helga sneaking one of his photos (he still had no idea how) and keeping it in the locket he now had in his possession.

"Oh hey Phoebe," Gerald said next to him, bringing Arnold out of his thoughts. He turned to see Phoebe standing there, holding one of her own pictures in her dainty hands and looking at Gerald shyly.

"Oh, um salutations Gerald. I was wondering if maybe. . .well that is. . ." She seemed unable to find the proper words and started to blush a little.

Gerald only smiled and said, "Um, sure, I'd love one of your pictures. Thanks Phoebe." Then a moment later, the boy added shyly, "Oh and, er, you can have one of mine...that is if you want it?"

Phoebe smiled and nodded happily, "Oh yes indeed, I would love that very much." She handed her picture to Gerald and he handed her one of his own back smiling. Both of their fingers brushed the others and each of them smiled happily.

Arnold grinned at the two of them as they began acting as shy around each other as they had the day before last.

'_The way me and Helga also sort-of acted the other day too_.' That thought popped into Arnold's head out of nowhere.

Before Arnold could feel anything connected to that thought however, he was once again brought out of his train of thought by the school bell ringing out.

"Oh boy, lunchtime and I'm starving!" Gerald said getting to his feet quickly.

"Same here," Phoebe agreed, holding her stomach.

"Yeah, me too," Arnold added. Indeed he'd been skipping meals or not eating very much the last couple of days and now he was quite hungry.

The three kids all made their way out of Mr. Simmon's class and towards the cafeteria. Today's lunch was a good one, spaghetti and meat sauce with bread and apple sauce. Arnold and Gerald both noticed that Phoebe had the money to get lunch today. Together all three of them found a seat near the window and sat down.

Phoebe looked at her food and seemed a little happier at the moment, then put her hands together in a traditional Japanese manner and muttered, _"Itadakimaasu."_

"I agree girl, let's eat. It's not everyday the lunch lady makes spaghetti." Gerald said, happily digging in.

Phoebe took a few bites then looked over at Arnold, who was looking out the window a moment at the now overcast skies outside. He was nibbling at his food and taking small idle bites, seeming lost in thought. She and Gerald shared a look of concern between them. Both of them were worried about Arnold's health and his mental well being.

Finally Gerald said to him. "Look Arnold, we both know your worried about Helga, heck we are too, but you have to take your mind off of all of it sometime."

Arnold looked at him, his eyes blazing in annoyance and said, in a slightly snappy voice, "Yeah? What if it were Phoebe in there instead, huh? Would _you_ be able to take your mind off of it too!"

Gerald and Phoebe both blinked. Indeed a third graders at the table beside them looked up a little startled at the quick outburst.

Realizing what he'd said, Arnold blinked then sighed "I-I'm sorry, Gerald. You too Phoebe, I didn't mean that."

Both of his friends only nodded silently accepting his apology, no words were needed as they both understood his worries.

Phoebe put her hand across the table and held Arnold's arm. "Arnold, I feel much like you all the time. Helga is my best friend and I miss her so much it hurts sometimes."

Arnold was surprised, not by what Phoebe said about herself, but how what she described felt so much like the way he felt. Phoebe _would_ feel that bad because her and Helga have been friends longer than everyone else in class with the possible exception of Gerald and himself.

He however was a different story. Arnold felt the same hurt as Phoebe, but also he knew that deep down his hurt was slightly different. He just wished he had ten minutes to talk to Helga about all of it somehow.

Nodding Arnold said, "Yeah, I know. But it just feels so. . .so frustrating to be sitting here doing nothing while Helga is rotting away in that place for something she didn't even do."

He looked at his tray and said quietly, "She's probably so sad right now, and scared. No matter how tough she acts or says she is, deep down she's just a ten year old girl who is surrounded by criminals. I just wish there was some way I-that we can reassure her somehow?"

Phoebe smiled at his words and said, "Perhaps there is a way, Arnold." She reached into the binder she carried and pulled out a couple of sheets of notebook paper (one of which was already written on with Phoebe's small neat handwriting) and an envelope with stamps and the proper addresses already written on the front.

"What have you got there, Phoebe baby?" Gerald asked smiling.

She seemed to have noticed that Gerald called her 'baby' because her yellowish cheeks began to redden as she answered, "I acquired the address for Cherry Hill Juvenile from Helga's parents yesterday when I returned the books. I was just finishing up a letter to sent to her."

Phoebe looked at Arnold and said, "Here's some paper and a pen, perhaps it would help your own anxieties if you wrote a letter of your own to Helga as well. I will include it with my letter. I'm quite certain that Helga would enjoy hearing from you too." The last part she said smiling at him.

Arnold smiled at the little oriental girl and said, "Thanks Phoebe, you're the best."

He took a bite of spaghetti and looked down at the blank notebook paper. He tapped it with the other end of the black ink pen, stuck on what to write at the beginning. 'How are you doing?' would have sounded dumb under the circumstances. Arnold decided to be honest. He took a breath and began to write: _Dear Helga..._

It was slow at first, but then Arnold started filling out the page with his handwritten words quicker.

Gerald and Phoebe watched and looked at one another happily as Phoebe went back to eating and finishing off the letter that she was writing also. To her amazement, Gerald asked to include something of his own and taking her letter, wrote a small note underneath for Helga and signed it. Phoebe read it and smiled, looking over at Gerald proudly and held his hand under the table. Both of the preteens blushed and smiled slightly at one another.

Arnold took no notice as he finished up his own letter. He looked it over pleased with himself, but there was still something missing that he could add. His hand went once again to his pocket where Helga's locket sat and then he blinked and grinned widely as an idea came to him. He looked over at his pictures folder and took out one of his new photos and included it with his letter as he folded it up and put his name on the side of it.

Phoebe noticed this and smiled to herself as she took Arnold's letter, folded up her own and wrote on the side of it also. She put both letters and the photo in the envelope and sealed it up happily.

Arnold suddenly felt slightly happier, as if some of the weight were gone from his shoulders. The pain wasn't gone, but it had lessened no less. He was suddenly hungry again and finished off his tray of spaghetti not long before the bell rang again, ending the lunch period.

_**To Be Continued...**_

_Sorry this chapter is so short, the next one will have much more, I promise. Please read and review!_

_This short Arnold, point of view chapter is dedicated to a girl I love a lot, Allison Neptune (a.k.a.. AllieCat) who turned 23 today! Happy Birthday sweetheart! -Love From Carl (a.k.a.. DarthRoden)_

Writer's Note: _Itadakimassu..."I will receive" in Japanese and is said traditionally before a meal. My thanks to Justine_ _Ashford (a.k.a. Demile) for pointing that out. -D.R. _


	22. Part 21: PG's Story

**Part Twenty-One: PG's Story **

Upon returning to Cherry Hill, Helga and the other girls who'd been assigned to the road gang were ordered to return to their dorm and shower up before lunch by Miss Foster.

At first, nearly all of the new Cherries were a bit hesitant to go into the shower following yesterday's "Cherry picking" but after a whole morning of picking up trash, stepping in animal droppings, car exhaust and their own perspiration, the desire to feel clean again won out. The girls all undressed and stepped into the lukewarm water and showered. A couple decided to stay under the water only long enough to rinse their bodies off and get out before another hazing happened out of nowhere.

For Helga the water, despite not being very warm, was heaven. It helped to ease her aching muscles which now felt very stiff and sore. "Oh man, I feel sore in places that I didn't even know I had," she said tilting her head right to left and rubbing the back of her neck as the water poured down her body.

Next to her, Trashmouth was soaping herself up. "Well, outdoor assignments are not so bad, at least we can enjoy a little good weather every now and again. Beats working in the laundry or the greenhouse, believe me."

Miranda, who'd already had a previous assignment in the laundry room, nodded in agreement as she was starting to rinse her small frame off. She kept glancing nervously over towards the doorway. Helga figured she was still worried about what happened the other night. A part of her shared the same concern.

Helga's mind was still on the meeting she'd had earlier with the white wolf in the trees. Had she simply imagined it? She must have. A real wolf would have probably tried to eat her or something, wouldn't it?

"It's times like this I really miss having a bath," PG said speaking up just then and pulling Helga from her thoughts.

Miranda seemed to perk up at the mention of baths. "Yeah, me too. A nice hot bubble bath." She was very thoughtful-looking and smiling as she added, "I've always enjoyed just being able to relax in the bubbles."

PG nodded. "Me too, I loved to just sit back in the tub and let my mind soar away over the clouds."

"Not too much of a trip then, huh PG?" Trashmouth teased, cupping some of the water in both her hands and splashing it at the short girl and giggling.

"Well at least I can dream about it can't I?" PG said, a little annoyed at having her fond memory interrupted. "The first thing I plan to do when I get out of here is go home and take a nice long bubble bath in real hot water and not get out of it again for two hours."

Even Trashmouth had nothing funny to say about it, the image was way too good. The four girls were all quiet for a moment, thinking about what it would be like to soak in a nice hot bubble bath again.

"How long have you got in here anyhow PG?" Helga asked her curiously.

PG sighed and said, "Eighteen months. I've only served about eight months of it. I'm up for review in ten weeks though, so I might get a break. Haven't been in trouble since my first couple of weeks here."

"What did you do?" Miranda asked her timidly as she cut off her shower.

PG looked at her a long moment and sighed. "You really want to know?"

Miranda nodded, but now seemed a little nervous. Helga figured it was because she was concerned about what PG might tell her. She shut off her own water and went over to the towels with them drying off and dressing as PG told her story.

"Kids have always picked on me my whole life, some because I have big ears, and others because I was very shy and kept to myself. You know what assholes kids can be to one another, especially those who that they think are different?"

Helga nodded as she put on a clean uniform. She understood that all too well having spent most of her life since preschool making sure to be on the giving end rather than the receiving end of that sort-of situation.

"Anyhow I got fed up with trying to fit in, and instead I started talking to the birds that came to eat the leftovers in the garbage cans."

She paused in the middled of her story a moment, then continued. "I've always loved them because they have no other worries or responsibilities. No need to try and fit in, or worries about being different. They are what they are." At this point PG smiled and said. "They are free to just exist and be left alone, that was all I ever wanted in life too.

"Everyday, I started taking my bread stuff from my lunch tray and at recess I would tear them up and toss them to the birds. They came and talked to me and I learned to understand them. For once I felt like I had something to do and friends to talk to. I know it's not the same as people, but at that point, I all but shut out most people except for my parents."

Now PG frowned and a somewhat painful look crossed her face. "Unfortunately, some of the other kids wouldn't leave me alone. They went out of their way to pick on me and call me names like 'weirdo' and 'bird-brain'. Some of them started picking on the birds I fed also.

"One day, a girl named Gretchen VanPelt, who was the worst snob in my class, decided it would be funny to toss a kickball at me. She hit me and then the ball she threw bounced off and killed one of my favorite pigeons." She closed her eyes and her lower lip trembled a little.

"His name had been Charlie. I named him after my oldest brother who got killed in a car accident when he was seventeen. He was one of my favorite birds. He didn't die right away, he was hurt bad and I tried to help him, but Gretchen pushed me down. I cried, trying to reason with her, to make her understand that Charlie was hurt, but all she said was that he was just a stupid bird. He died a few moments later in my hands." She looked sad and thoughtful at the memory, even blinking back tears.

"I got angry then and, without really thinking about it, picked up a wooden baseball bat with the other playground equipment and went at her. It hit Gretchen in the right shoulder and dislocated it, then broke her left arm. I was so hurt, all I could think about was her and all the other kids who laughed at me and Charlie being dead. Gretchen ended up in the hospital with a cast on her arm and several dozen stitches from a shoulder surgery and I was later arrested and sentenced for aggravated assault."

Helga listened to the whole story with a feeling of terrible shame rising up inside of her. She remembered how, not very long ago, she herself would often tease or pick on kids for no better reason than the fact that they looked or acted odd to her in some way or another.

Her reasons often had to do with keeping up her reputation as a tough girl on the outside, however she couldn't deny the fact that, on many of those occasions, if not all of them, she actually enjoyed what she did. It had given her some perverse pleasure to pick on some smaller kids, or make fun of others. Especially Arnold, who she loved, yet teased and tormented almost everyday since she'd first meet him in preschool almost seven years before.

Sometimes it would amuse her to see the annoyed, even slightly pissed-off look Arnold would give her whenever she made those comments about his football-shaped head, or when she pulled some little juvenile prank on him.

Not very often if ever, with the exception of some of the things she'd done to Arnold, did Helga ever really think about what doing those things did to the people she tormented. Didn't those same kids have feelings also? How deep did those hurts from those little petty tortures of her's go?

Indeed, the gulf between her and Arnold seemed wide enough, despite the recent developments between them. Arnold still seemed a little bit hesitant and nervous with her, even as he reached out-almost warily-for her to open up even a little to him. Even that seemed to be more out of a desire for friendship rather than a desire born out of love.

Had her nicknames and petty insults over the years caused such a rift that she might not ever get her heart's desire? Had she doomed herself and completely pushed away any hope she had of winning Arnold's heart?

Only now, as she looked at PG and the sad look she was giving them after telling her story, did Helga ever really consider how badly such things might effect someone. What seemed like no big deal to her might, in fact, not be so small a deal to the person she did it to. Looking at PG, Helga saw not a victim for ridicule or cheap amusement, but a person, like herself (though slightly more odd) with thoughts, dreams, and real feelings.

Helga remembered the thing that Stinky said on the playground just before the fire broke out, about how when she pushed that sixth grader Simone, she was the one accused of being the aggressor simply because of who she was, Helga G. Pataki, the terror of the fourth grade and school tough girl. Then how Judge Thompson and Principal Wartz both were so ready to believe, based on her reputation and its record, that she would be capable of starting a fire and endangering the whole population of PS 118.

'_Am I really that bad in all their eyes?'_ She thought to herself sadly. _'Am I really seen by everyone at school as so bad that they could really believe I could do something that terrible?'_

The fact she was now a resident of the State here in Cherry Hell spoke volumes about the answers to those questions.

"Hey Pataki, what is with you?" Trashmouth asked smirking. "And they said that PG here has her head in the clouds."

Helga shook her head and muttered, "Oh, um sorry about that, just alot on my mind today that's all." She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind for the moment.

Trashmouth shrugged and started to light up another cigarette from the almost empty pack in her shirt pocket. "Well we better go line up for lunch. After that, class time."

Helga nodded along with the rest of them and turned out of the restroom to go lineup for lunch. She couldn't help but glance at PG as she did so and closed her eyes sorrowfully over the fate of that poor girl and her own feelings about what brought her here.

_**To Be Continued...**_

_Next chapter: Helga Vs. The Bear and Miss Walker! Stay Tuned! Read and Reveiw! -D.R._


	23. part 22: Bear Baiting

**Part Twenty-Two: Bear Baiting**

Once again Helga found herself in the Mess Hall, standing in line behind Trashmouth with PG and Miranda behind her. Just like before, mealtime here at Cherry Hell started out with Trashmouth making her own unique observations about the prison food as they made their way up to the distribution area.

"Wait, don't tell me Sutherland, let me take the smell guess." Taking a sniff with her large nose, Trashmouth closed her eyes and said, "Ah, I have it! Its road kill from the bottom of a sewer worker's shoe that's been sitting in the bottom of a pile of dirty laundry for a month and stewed. Am I right?"

Sutherland's used a long metal spoon to scoop some very greasy-looking scrambled eggs onto Trashmouth's tray, frowning a little at the shorter girl. "O'Feir, you suck, you know that?"

Grinning stupidly, Trashmouth replied, "Only your brother."

Helga took a chocolate milk carton and a scoop each of the food. She was very hungry after the whole road gang detail. Even the greasy-looking eggs were appealing to her. She smiled brightly when she saw bowls of tapioca pudding, one of which she took eagerly. Behind her, Miranda was also getting some pudding and PG simply took half a dozen rolls and set them on her tray.

Together the four girls made their way to a table near the far wall. Helga sat closer to the isle, Miranda beside her while PG and Trashmouth sat across from them. Trashmouth also choose to sit near the isle. As before, PG pulled out a small paper bag and began to tear up her bread and put it in the bag, with the exception of the crumbs she stuffed to Tony under her coat. A soft cooing could be heard from inside.

Helga bit into her own roll eagerly, savoring the taste of food and glanced around the Mess Hall. Bowers and Pena were both sitting a few tables away with some other large inmates that Helga remembered took part in the 'Cherry Picking.' Thankfully neither they, nor their friends, appeared to be paying any attention whatsoever to her. She was about to bless her good fortune when her eyes moved over a little to the left and rested on the small girl from that morning, sitting on one side of a nearby table, looking at her food but not really taking much more than a few nibbles. Again Helga was taken aback slightly by how young and vulnerable-looking the girl seemed and the amount of bruising she had on her face.

She turned then to look at Trashmouth and PG and was about to ask them if they knew something about the whole incident last night, when a large shadow crossed over Helga and Miranda. Across from them, both Trashmouth and PG looked up and paused in mid-chew. Both of them had apprehensive looks crossing their faces. Helga's defensive instincts shot to full alert mode, she could feel in her bones that some sort-of confrontation was about to occur. Years at PS 118 and much experience dealing out to other kids taught her that.

Right then, a thick, dark-skinned arm came from between Helga and Miranda and grabbed her tapioca pudding bowl. Helga, acting totally on instinct simply grabbed the large arm by the wrist and turned around, coming face-to-face with the inmate that Trashmouth told her was nicknamed "The Bear."

From the distance she'd seen her before Helga thought that The Bear was a large girl compared to the other inmates. Looking at her now, standing over her as Helga sat, she rather thought that the huge girl reminded her a lot of Big Patty . . . only a little larger and way meaner. The girl's dark brown eyes bored into Helga's own blue ones with a very tough look.

"Hey, what do you think your doing?" Helga asked her, putting as much annoyance into her voice as she could. She glared up at the girl as fiercely as she could, using the look of intimidation that frightened, or at least unnerved most kids at P.S. 118.

The huge girl looked back at her, meeting Helga's glare with one of her own, clearly not impressed with what she saw and answered, with a deep gruff voice, "I'm taking this, you got a problem with that, Cherry?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Helga responded, now feeling a little bit of her familiar anger returning at the fact this big neanderthal was trying to intimidate her.

The Bear smirked terribly at her, but her dark scowl remained. "You're new here, so I'm willing to cut you a break if you let go of my wrist now and give me the pudding. One way or another you're going to give it up, bitch." The last part sounded almost like a growl.

Helga never liked having someone tell her what she "was" going to do, nor was she a person who responded well to intimidation. Any nervous feeling or brief fear she had of this girl was slowly being replaced by an incredulous anger. She stood up and faced The Bear, the top of Helga's head barely came up to the older girl's chest.

Both Helga and The Bear began to pull on the bowl. Helga knew from the fact that the girl's arm was almost as wide as her waist that if the larger girl pulled harder, she'd jerk it out of Helga's grasp. She pulled with all her might anyhow. "Like hell, it's my pudding, pig-girl!"

The Bear frowned now and her little small dark eyes narrowed angrily. "You little shit! Give me that pudding, if you know what's good for you." She pulled against Helga's grip slightly and began to snatch it away.

Helga had been waiting for that exact moment. "Okay, fine! You want it that bad? Then here you go!"

Instead of letting it go, like The Bear assumed she would, Helga instead pushed the bowl of tapioca pudding forward as the large inmate pulled and slammed it into her face, splattering all around, especially in the other inmate's hair. The yellowish pudding dripped from the bowl that was now covering The Bear's face, dribbling down the girl's prison shirt.

There were yells from all around her. The other inmates who'd been watching intently from their tables were all laughing, a few of them cheered, while some others looked shocked at the fact that a new Cherry just slammed a bowl of pudding into the face of a much larger and more seasoned inmate.

Miranda looked stunned from where she sat. PG blinked once, her wide eyes almost popping out of her head at what she'd seen. Trashmouth's mouth was opened wide, and she too looked shocked for a moment, then joined in with other inmates cheering Helga and laughing.

Helga, for her part, seemed to come to herself and realize, with some growing sense of dread, exactly what she'd done. All of her resolve seemed to have evaporated on the spot, leaving behind an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. She watched as her bowl fell slowly from The Bear's now tapioca-covered face. The laughter of the other inmates grew louder all around. Beneath the laughter however, Helga heard the distinct sound of a growl . . . like a bear.

The Bear, growling through her teeth, lunged half-blind at Helga.

Acting purely on instinct, Helga backed up a little, and in doing so, slipped on some of the tapioca pudding on the floor and fell backwards, hitting her head against the edge of the table hard enough to see spots in front of her eyes. This action was all that saved her from being hit hard in the face by a huge fist, as well as helped Helga to unwittingly get in an extra good hit. As she'd slid down to land hard on the floor, her slippery feet connected to The Bear's legs, knocking the larger girl off balance. The large inmate's forward momentum, mostly from the anger she applied to the swing she'd thrown before, caused her to fall forward. Helga barely rolled out of the way from the overweight body that landed on the spot she'd been before and almost crushed her.

To add insult to injury, The Bear (before falling to the floor, with a loud meaty thump) reached out trying to block her fall and ended up grabbing the bottom edge of Helga's tray, causing it to flip over and its contents to rain down on top of her prone body.

Many inmates shouted, cheered, catcalled and whistled loudly.

Helga blinked as she sat there next to the food-covered bully, who was getting up looking extremely pissed off. Her eyes were full of fury and she looked ready to tear Helga's head off her shoulders with one swipe of her massive hands. She sat up on her knees and grabbed Helga by the front of her shirt, picking her up a little way with a jerk. "Why you little . . . "

As the bully said this, another shadow crossed over the both of them and a familiar voice asked, "Do _we_ have a problem ladies?"

Helga looked up and her heart sank. The Bear seemed to control herself, her anger replaced now by some look of dread.

Miss Walker stood over them, her badge gleaming in the light, and a very sarcastic smirk playing on her face.

The Bear shook her head slowly and said, "No ma'am, Miss Walker." Helga shook her head also.

"We weren't fighting were we girls?" The guard asked, her hand moving closely toward the baton in her belt, eyes moving over them dangerously even as she continued to smirk.

"N-no ma'am," Helga said shaking her head quickly.

Walkers' grin went wider and she said, looking at The Bear, "You know Parker, you just got out of the Hole this morning. You must really love it in there." That nasty gleam in her piggish eyes was back, as if she were enjoying herself immensely.

The Bear, from where Helga could see, began to look a little panicked. She had no idea why the guard's words seemed to evoke such terror into someone so large. However, she could feel the larger girl's arm tremble and see her shake somewhat.

Helga didn't know why, but she spoke up again. Thinking fast, she added, "Bear wanted to know if she could have my tapioca pudding, but she slipped and fell. I did too and accidentally spilled my food on her, really."

Walker looked at her, eyes suspicious and glanced at The Bear, who was still holding Helga's shirt tightly, however she set Helga back on the floor slowly. "Is this true, Parker?"

The Bear only nodded, keeping an amazingly straight face for some reason. "Yes Ma'am."

Walker looked around at the other inmates, all of whom seemed to find their food interesting again. The guard's eyes then turned to Trashmouth, PG and Miranda, who all shrank back a little from her gaze. "Is this true, ladies?" All three of them nodded and looked away.

Helga glanced up at Walker as she looked at her companions. She knew that what Helga and The Bear told her wasn't true and also knew they were lying to her, but she couldn't prove it. She could also tell that it made the large female guard angry.

Walkers' gaze turned back to them and rested on The Bear. "Very well Parker, you're done with your meal. I suggest you go back to the dorm and get changed." She didn't sound very happy with the fact nobody was being punished.

The Bear nodded and answered back with a muttered, "Yes Ma'am, Miss Walker." She turned back to face Helga and glared at her before releasing her, pushing her hard as she did so. Helga had no trouble reading that look on her face. It said: "We'll finish this another time real soon, bitch." The Bear then stood up and slowly walked away, inmates all around her snickered and pointed at her. She glared hard at some of them, but she left Mess Hall a defeated person. At least for now.

Helga began to stand when Walker looked back at her and said, "I guess that you never got to finish your lunch did you, Pataki?"

Shaking her head, Helga said, "No ma'am, I didn't."

Suddenly, that wicked gleam in the large woman's eyes came back and an unpleasant twitch came to her lips. "Well, you better finish up then?"

Helga nodded and started to sit up, thankful for any reason to look away from that nasty glare, when Walker's voice made her stop in mid movement.

"What do you think your doing, Pataki?" Walker asked her taking a step toward her.

"I'm going to get another tray," she answered, forgetting to add the word 'ma'am' this time. Helga glanced up at Walker who smiled again and shook her head.

"Why, Pataki? Your food still looks pretty good from here. Pick it up and eat it." She indicated the floor-ridden remnants of Helga's lunch in front of her. There were globs of tapioca pudding, an apple slice, some cooked vegetables, a part of her roll and some scrambled eggs on the floor. The places where The Bear slipped in the spilled tapioca and a footprint where she walked off were visible in the food, and a black cockroach made its presence known then from under the table nearby and crawled over to the globs of tapioca.

Helga felt sick to her stomach and thought to argue but she knew better than to push her luck. Somehow she doubted the "Five Second Rule" would be a helpful argument and, any sarcasm now would only add to her problems. So she took her tray from nearby and scooped as much of the food up as she could and put it in the tray. It was dirt covered and she felt the need to puke.

"Sit down and eat," Walker said, looking hard at her now. Nearby Bowers and Pena both smirked and watched with several other tough-looking girls at the other table across the room.

Helga stood, then sat down in her seat, and looked down at the dirty food on her tray. The joke that Trashmouth told the inmate earlier came back to her and the revulsion filled her. She started to turn green from both her own hunger and her stomach turning.

"Well, what are you waiting for,_ bitch_," Walker snarled at her, then shoved her left shoulder slightly. "Eat it now, or your going to the Hole for starting fights!"

In front of her, both Trashmouth and PG avoided looking at her very much, but neither of them resumed eating, nor had Miranda next to her. All of them were nervously waiting to see how this would turn out.

Helga glanced over in time to see the girl from that morning looking over at her, their eyes meet once again for a brief moment, but it was enough for Helga to see a completely understanding look. Walker was dangerous, but she was the one with the power here.

She picked up her metal spoon and scooped up a small bite of the dirty food and slowly brought it to her lips. She caught a close up look of a couple of greyish hairs mixed into the mess of tapioca and eggs. Her stomach growled at the smell of the food despite her brain screaming things about dirty prison floors and roaches. Helga closed her eyes and took a bite. She felt the urge to gag but held it in with an almost heroic effort. The food tasted as greasy as ever, and the dirt didn't add much of an improvement to the flavor. She forcefully willed herself to not thing of cockroaches or...God forbid, _rats_...walking along the floor at night.

"Swallow it," hissed the guard giving her a sinister look.

Helga obeyed, the whole while thinking to herself, '_I won't throw up! I won't throw up!'_

Quickly she grabbed her chocolate milk and began to drink it down. Behind her, Walker giggled and said, "That's right, it does a body good." With that last remark and a vicious smirk on her face she finally walked away humming something under her breath. Nearby the bullies all laughed. The other inmates all looked at her with mixed expressions of disgust, pity and awe, then almost quickly resumed their meals.

"Boy Pataki," Trashmouth said smiling. "First you face The Bear then lie to Walker? You must wanna die young kid."

After a moment, Miranda looked at her and said, "Are you alright, Helga?"

"Criminey what the hell do you think, _stupid_!" She said, feeling all at once the anger and humiliation she'd endured coming back replacing the fear she'd had moments before.

Miranda flinched and looked back at her tray, suddenly a little scared of Helga.

"Hey be cool Pataki," Trashmouth said, looking as serious and as sympathetic as Helga had seen her till now. "She's on your side, remember?"

"We all are," PG said, pulling out two of the rolls that she hadn't yet crumbled up for the birds and replaced the remaining roll with them. Miranda nodded smiling and passed over some of her own apple slices.

Helga looked between them and felt some tears come to her eyes. Some in sadness and some in joy at realizing she wasn't in this alone. "Thanks," she said in a whisper. Then she looked over at Miranda and said, "I'm sorry Riley, I didn't mean to snap at you like that."

Miranda only shook her head and said, "It's okay, Helga, don't sweat it."

Following their example, Trashmouth offered her own bowl of tapioca pudding saying "here, you can have it, I don't like it tapioca, I prefer lemon pudding. Besides, Sutherland probably spat in it anyhow." She blinked seeing the sour looks she suddenly got from Helga and the other two. "What?"

_**To Be Continued...**_

_Sorry the update took a while, another great chapter will be coming up soon. Read and send in those great reviews! -D.R._


	24. Part 23: After Classtime Conversations

**Part Twenty-Three: After Classtime Conversations**

Dr. Lang walked into the single classroom that served the inmates of Dorm C for the continuing of their education as they served out their terms at Cherry Hill.

There were four classrooms assigned to serve each dorm, all of which looked almost exactly the same. The walls and ceilings were all bare and painted the same faded gray as the dorms themselves. The lighting in the room came from two sets of long florescent light bulbs on the ceiling, all of which were on because of the overcast sky outside. The windows were on the far wall, all of which were covered with the same wire fencing as the windows in the Mess Hall. There were four rows of seven single desks with the chairs attached facing a wooden desk and blackboard in front of the room.

The normal routine each day was for three different sets of inmates from the dorms to have a ninety minute class period, the subject changing each day six days out of the week with only Sundays as a day off.

Dr. Lang walked over to the teacher assigned to this class, Miss Hutchinson, who was already there, standing behind the desk and preparing some papers and the supplies for the next set of inmates who would be taking classes.

Like Dr. Lang, Cindy Hutchinson did not wear a uniform of any sort. Unlike Dr. Lang, Miss Hutchinson wore more casual clothes. At the moment she was dressed out in a pair of green jogging pants and a matching sweater with white tennis shoes on her feet. Her shoulder-length auburn hair framed her large nose and wide mouth. Miss Hutchinson's grey and tired-looking eyes meet hers a moment later.

"Hey there Jen, your not here on official business with me are you?" Miss Hutchinson joked with a small smile on her face.

"Well, I do need to get back to work on that psychological profile of you that I am working on for the State Attorney General's office," Dr. Lang said with an utterly straight face. So straight, in fact, that Miss Hutchinson's face sort-of slacked a little and her eyes widened slightly. Only then did Dr. Lang offer a smile and say, "I'm only kidding of course, Cindy."

Letting out a tired laugh, Hutchinson smiled and said, "Oh, I knew that. Still, you know Jen, you can be pretty convincing with that face, did you know that?"

Dr. Lang smiled with a little bit of humor now and said, "Believe me, I know. I practice it in front of the mirror every night for an hour." She winked. "It keeps both the inmates and my own daughters on their toes when they think they can't get away with lying to me."

Miss Hutchinson laughed and so did Dr. Lang, since she was only being partly serious. Her ability to keep her face so neutral was just a psychological technique she employed to let her subjects think that she can see right through them when they tell her fabrications, half-truths or bold-faced lies. Certainly she knew little tricks of the trade that she'd learned in college that helped her see through likes, however it was that look that worked on letting the hardened juveniles know that she could see they were not kidding her. With these sort of kids, it was very important to establish that.

The only part of what she'd told Miss Hutchinson that had not been true was the fact that it worked on her daughters. One's own children almost always has their own ways of keeping secrets and getting away with things. No parent could always see right through them all the time.

"So Jen, what brings you down here?" The teacher asked.

"I came to ask you about the newest arrivals to Dorm C. I believe they were your previous class?"

Miss Hutchinson nodded looking a little tired. "Yeah and let me tell you, some of them were defiantly rowdy, especially with some of the usual trouble makers from the dorm. Especially O'Feir."

"I can imagine," Dr. Lang said with a small smile. Shannon "Trashmouth" O'Feir had a long history of clowning around, which she had been reprimanded for time and time again.

"So what can you tell me about their performances?"

Miss Hutchinson seemed to think a moment and said, "Well, today's class was mathematics. I handed out the usual test papers to determine how much they know." She went over to the desk and pulled out a folder. "Oh yes here they are. Take a look for yourself."

Dr. Lang opened the folder and set it down on a nearby desk and reviewed the test papers inside.

They were the standard papers with mathematics problems which began with a simple questions of addition and subtraction. Then they moved to multiplication and division, then got into word problems. All of these gradually became harder as the test went along. The tests that were given to the inmates would probably have not been too difficult for an average third grade student who paid a minimal amount of attention in class.

However, as Dr. Lang knew, most juvenile offenders were kids who bullied or committed anti-social acts of rage and violence out of guilt or some sort-of self-hatred. Sometimes a child with little self esteem would lash out at people to seek attention or to inflict their own pain as a means to help them feel better. Sometimes, it was not even something deep seated, but something much closer to the surface. More often that not it was negligence on the part of parents, or peer pressure at school. Other times drugs or abuse from another influence.

One of the results of this self-hatred was neglecting ones own education.

Looking at the tests, which Miss Hutchinson already graded with red marker, that appeared to fit in this case as well. Some of the results made her shake her head.

Many of these girls would probably still be in the first grade under proper educational standards. However, Dr. Lang also knew, to her sorrow, that problem children and "rowdy" students were more often than not intentionally passed on by grade school teachers who were apathetic to the needs of individual students in favor of simply getting them out of their classes. It was a problem far too common in the public school systems of most big cities. The result, kids with little education. These often resulted in further self-esteem problems which ultimately led to problem cases and delinquent behavior that led them to trouble.

Dr. Lang knew intellectually that most public schools in the city were stretched thin with cut budgets and lack of experienced teachers in most cases. She was far from unsympathetic to the daily problems of most school administrators, she couldn't help but feel that the current system seemed to trap some poor kids into the vicious cycle that resulted in the need for places like Cherry Hill Juvenile.

The juvenile psychologist continued her evaluation of the tests. All of which were test papers of fifty questions, two points a piece graded by the current grading standards of school districts in the State. The averages were as follows: 100-90 was an A, 89-84 was a B, 83-78 was a C, 77-70 was a D, and 69 and under was an F.

As Dr. Lang suspected, on several of the tests, some of the questions were not answered at all. Probably because they didn't know the answers or lack of focus during the testing and not getting there before time expired. In other cases, some of the papers were given answers that were all to often guesses. Some had crude drawings or words written on them.

She went down the list, looking at the grades and averages:

D . . . 73

C . . . 79

D . . . 76

F . . . 54

F . . . 30

D . . . 70

C . . . 82

F . . . 65

C . . . 80

D . . . 72

She encountered a B plus average of eighty-six from the test done by Miranda Riley, 713. She nodded. It concurred with her earlier diagnosis of Riley's personality. She was an average student who simply made an error in judgement on the outside. She shouldn't even be in here by all rights. Dr. Lang made it her purpose to see to it that the girl got a good evaluation come her first review.

These thoughts were going through Dr. Lang's head as she put Miranda's test aside and then encountered something she did not expect at all. A grade with an A average of ninety-eight!

She blinked when she looked up and saw the name on the corner. Helga Pataki, 712.

It took her a full moment to realize she wasn't in fact seeing things. She picked up the test paper and looked at it closely. The answers were indeed right, except for a word problem near the middle, which had something of a trick answer that many average students could get wrong. Even at that, she was only off by a little bit. But the other word problems and even the long division answers were correct. There were also some small doodles on the paper, one of which included a heart with the letters H + A just above a small drawing of a figure with a football-shaped face with pointy tufts of hair and a small hat perched to one side on top. So apparently, she finished the test well before time expired and had enough time to draw on it as well.

Dr. Lang was practically floored by this revelation. It didn't fit in with the profile of a bully that she was all too familiar with.

"Cindy? What do you make of this one?" She asked turning back to the teacher.

Miss Hutchinson came over and smiled a little seeing the paper. "Oh yeah, Pataki. It rather surprised me as well, considering that she seemed like a real tough one with that scowl and all."

Dr. Lang nodded and looked at the test paper again, as if trying to find the answers to her own questions among the mathematical problems.

"Tell me, Cindy. Any possibility of cheating?" Dr. Lang asked carefully.

Miss Hutchinson smiled and shook her head. "Off of whom, Jen? The rest of the tests were C averages at best. The girl got the long division answers all right. Most of the kids never even got that far. Not even that small Riley girl did them properly, and she was the only one sitting next to Pataki near the window."

Dr. Lang took this in with a start. So her suspicions about Pataki and Riley were correct. She glanced at the differences in the two papers and saw that Miss Hutchinson was correct. If Pataki could do the harder questions, then there was no way she would need to cheat off of Riley, who got several answers wrong that Pataki herself got correct.

"Did Pataki, at any time during the class, ever seem to threaten or intimidate Riley or anyone else in any way?" She asked, curious about the answer.

The teacher shook her head. "Not at all. In fact, from what I observed, Pataki and Riley seem to get along very well together. Of course, I didn't see them but once today and only for an hour and a half."

Nodding Dr. Lang looked once more at the test paper in puzzlement. Something was nagging at her, nothing she could put her finger on, but she got the sense that there was something she was overlooking.

Dr. Lang nodded and offering the teacher a smile said, "Ok that's all for now. Thank you Cindy, you've been very helpful." She returned the papers to the folder and handed them back to Miss Hutchinson. "If possible, could you make me a photo copy of Helga Pataki's test paper before you leave today?"

"No problem, Jen. Give my love to Edmund and the twins." Cindy Hutchinson said cheerfully.

"I will," Dr. Lang said leaving to go take a small trip back to her office and to look at her new arrivals files again. Her curiosity was peaked and she needed to test her hypothesis.

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_Sorry for the delay, the next chapter wont take too long, I promise. Oh and don't worry, Helga will have some visitors soon, as well as some letters. Keep up the faith! -D.R._


	25. Part 24: The Tears Of A Beeper Salesman

**Part Twenty-Four: The Tears Of A Beeper Salesman**

About the same time that afternoon that Dr. Lang was making her unexpected discovery about Helga, the last bell at PS 118 rang, dismissing the students for the day.

Arnold and Gerald once again waited on Phoebe and together, the three of them left the school building to walk home. The sky outside was over cast and a chilly wind made them zip-up their coats. Phoebe shivered slightly. This time, Gerald put his arm around the petite girl, pulling her closely as they walked. Arnold looked over and couldn't help but smile slightly at the way both of his friends looked at one another shyly, both of their cheeks reddening in a faint flush, which he was certain had nothing to do with the cool autumn breeze.

In many ways, Arnold was happy for both Gerald and Phoebe, because they had one another to care about. The attention and caring that Gerald offered helped Phoebe through what both boys knew was a very difficult time in her life. He was glad for Phoebe as much as he was for his best friend. Even though neither of them was admitting it, they were both already a couple in all but name . . . if only they would admit it to each other.

In another way, Arnold was jealous of the pair. While neither of them ignored him, he did get the sense that Gerald wanted to be alone more with Phoebe for a while and vice versa from Phoebe. Arnold did sort-of feel like a fifth wheel.

He couldn't help but think, '_If only Helga were here with us . . . with me.'_ He sighed.

Arnold was brought out of this thought when Gerald said, "Hello, is anybody in there, man?" He waved a hand in front of Arnold's face. Phoebe watched on smiling a little.

"Huh? What?" He blinked looking at Gerald.

"I was saying that we should go with Phoebe to take Helga's pictures to her house," Gerald said.

Arnold thought about this a moment, looking from Gerald to Phoebe. He remembered how he broke down yesterday while taking Helga's books to her home. He felt a need to make up for his loss of composure. Besides he thought about how Phoebe and Gerald should have a little time to themselves.

"Hey Phoebe, can I take Helga's pictures to her parents? Gerald can walk you home. It's on my way anyhow." He asked hopefully.

"Are you sure, Arnold?" Phoebe asked looking over a Gerald a moment concerned. Gerald gave her an equally worried look back.

"It's okay you guys. I just want to make up for yesterday. Plus, I can mail the letters on the way." Arnold offered, a pleading look in his eyes. "Don't worry, it's okay, I promise. I just really need to do this myself."

Phoebe smiled a little and finally nodded, "Sure Arnold." She handed over the folder and the envelope with the letters inside.

"Thanks Phoebe," he said and took them happily.

Gerald smiled at his friend, "Take it easy Arnold, I'll see you later, okay man?"

Arnold waved, "See you, Gerald. You too, Phoebe." He turned to go in the opposite direction. As he walked away, Arnold smiled a little hearing Gerald asking Phoebe if he could hold her hand as he walked her home.

He walked some little ways and turned the corner, then stopped and looked at the folder in his left hand. Arnold thought about it a moment and then opened it and pulled out one of the photos of Helga. She was wearing her usual pink dress and white blouse, with matching pink bow set on top of her head between her golden blonde pigtails. She had her arms folded and she was frowning into the camera, unibrow set in annoyance.

Arnold found himself smiling down at the image of the bully who constantly annoyed and picked on him for the last seven years of his life. The girl who'd tormented him for most of his childhood. The girl who shot spitwads at him, squirted him from the water fountain, and sometimes seemed to go out of her way just to call him nicknames and laugh mockingly at him.

Yet for all that, she was the girl whom Arnold always knew deep down wasn't as bad as she seemed. Arnold saw many glimpses of the girl he cared for underneath that scowling demeanor every day. The shy, nervous, awkward girl, who hid her anxieties behind a mask of annoyance and indifference. She was the girl who stood by him on several occasions, despite the claim then that she hated him. The same girl who told him months ago, while desperately fighting against all odds to save the only home that he'd ever known, that she_ loved_ him.

At the time both of them were too embarrassed by the facts surrounding her confession . . . as well as the kiss that she'd given him . . . that they decided it would be better to pretend it didn't happen. Mostly, Arnold helped her to find a way out, not only because he himself wasn't sure of his feelings, but because he knew her confession _had_ been a spur of the moment idea. One that Arnold himself sort-of forced out of her.

Since that time, while things between the two of them seemed to have gone back to normal outwardly, there had been a change in their attitudes between the way they acted around one another. Helga still called him names and shot spitwads at him in school and when the gang all hung out together, yet there was a lot less of it. Even her favorite nickname for him "Football-head" seemed more like a term of endearment, or at least, now it had a hint of affection and familiarity with it than it previously had to Arnold's mind.

As for Arnold, now that he understood that Helga did what she did in public to hide her feelings for him . . . feelings he'd been both flattered by and confused about . . . he was able to tolerate her behavior. Even, in the case of last April Fools Day, found ways to retaliate against her, though not in a mean sort-of way. Ironically, Arnold even found doing so fun, and even laughed about it with Gerald later on. Arnold found he could no longer be angry at Helga anymore, though he was certainly still a little annoyed at times by her juvenile antics. He was even finding himself thinking about her at odd times for no reason, and even more amazingly, found himself thinking very fondly of them.

Now Helga ironically tormented him in another way. This time by not being there when he realized that he was beginning to feel the same for her . . . or maybe he always had, but only now started to realize it? Arnold wasn't certain yet, but he really wished she was there with him now so they could find a way to figure it out together.

Gazing down at the picture, Arnold smiled more looking at the scowling face, imagining her usual annoyed voice saying in his mind, _'What are you looking at, geek-bait?' _He traced the picture with his finger a moment. Then he resealed the folder and put it under his right arm. He took his cap from his head with his left hand and placed the picture inside and replaced it on top of his head, in an almost graceful motion. He'd already told Helga in his letter to her that he would take one, he only hoped she didn't mind.

Arnold stood there a moment longer, the wind blowing through his hair and wondered if he should have told Helga in his letter that he had her locket? He thought about it a moment and shook his head. He would give it back to her when he saw her again. Besides he sort-of felt like keeping it for her. He had no real reason to, just that he felt the need to do something for her. Also it was the only part of Helga (other than the photo he took) that he had in his possession and he wasn't about to give it up.

Up ahead, Arnold saw Harvey, the mailman walking up a stoop, then bend over to drop a couple of letters inside the mail slot in the door. Remembering the letters, Arnold called out to him, "Hey Harvey! Wait up!"

The black man stood up and looked over at the sound of his name, then smiled and waved to him. "Hey Arnold, how are things with you?" He asked pleasantly.

"Oh, well they've been better, but I am feeling all right now, I guess," the football-headed boy said honestly enough. Then he pulled out the envelope and said, "Um here, could you do me a favor and mail this for me?"

Harvey took it and said, "I will send it off the moment I'm done with this street, the last stop on my route. Your letter should be sent on it's way this evening." He looked at the address and nodded, his eyes behind his glasses revealed nothing.

Idly Arnold wondered what his belief was about Helga's guilt, but he didn't want to ask. He had already estranged himself with almost every friend of his at school over his stubborn refusal to accept Helga as guilty, and he didn't feel like being angry with anyone else. He simply smiled and said, "Thank you, Harvey. I better be going now, see you later."

"Take care of yourself, Arnold," the mail carrier said walking off humming a tune.

Arnold turned and resumed his walk until he came to the Pataki house. It was a tall, purple-painted building, with three stories and a big stoop, like most houses in this part of the city. As he walked up, Big Bob Pataki's Lincoln pulled up to the front of the house, the car's headlights facing Arnold's direction. The driver's side opened and Big Bob climbed out wearing his brown trench coat and hat, carrying a briefcase in his right hand.

Arnold walked over to him as he came out of the car a little apprehensively. Big Bob Pataki was not one of his favorite adults. Also he recalled the man's behavior at the trial, including the last thing said about Helga's sister. To be honest, Arnold wasn't even certain that Big Bob or Helga's mother was nearly as certain of their younger daughters innocence as he was.

He cleared his throat and said, "Um, excuse me, Mr. Pataki?"

Big Bob turned his head, his brown eyes gazed sharply toward Arnold, a scowl on his face that was a lot like Helga's, unibrow and all. He recognized Arnold and said in his usual gruff way, "Oh . . . um, hey there, Alfred."

Arnold looked at him and said, "It's Arnold, sir." Big Bob Pataki always did seem to have a problem remembering his name.

"Yeah, yeah, Arnold, right," Big Bob said quickly brushing aside the correction and added, "Look kid, what do you want? I'm tired and I just had a very long day at work."

Feeling his anger rise in his chest again, Arnold did his best to keep it in check. Reaching under his arm, Arnold pulled out the photo file and held it out to the Big Bob. "These are Helga's school photos, our teacher, Mr. Simmons, wanted you to have these."

He saw Big Bob actually blink a moment, and his face went a little blank. Then he shook his head, as if clearing it of some random thought and said, "Oh, um, r-right." Then he took the file with his left hand and nodded, "Thanks boy."

Arnold nodded a little noticing the lapse and he began to wonder. Did Big Bob really miss his daughter or actually care about if she was guilty or not? He'd never known either Big Bob or Miram Pataki to be overtly loving parents, but did that mean that they were always neglectful, or simply didn't show that side of themselves as often for the world to see? The better part of Arnold's nature always told him to give people the benefit of the doubt and to trust in his instincts.

"So . . . how are things concerning Helga's appeal coming, sir?" Arnold asked curiously.

Big Bob looked at him and said, widening his eyes and gesturing aggressively, "I'm getting the best lawyer I can find and get my daughter out of that place! Like I told that judge, we Patakis are _not_ law breakers! After that, I plan to sue the entire school system! There is no way that I am going to allow my family's name to be dragged through the mud!"

Arnold blinked, pleasantly surprised by all of this new attitude he saw in Big Bob.

Then Big Bob added something that made all of his pleasant feeling go away instantly. "For the last two days, people have been talking about me, pointing and saying, 'There's Big Bob Pataki, the guy with the arsonist for a daughter!' Do you have any idea what that has done for our reputation, not to mention _my beeper sales_!"

Arnold felt the disgust rise inside him, this time however he didn't hold it back, "I don't believe you!"

The man blinked and looked at him. "Huh? What are you mean?"

Arnold took a step toward him and said, "Helga didn't start that fire! You're her_ father_! You should be supporting her and believing in her, but instead all you're thinking about are your reputation and your damned beepers!"

Big Bob began to get angry, "Now look here, kid . . ."

"No you look here, Bob!" Arnold shouted at him, purposely using his name the way Helga did on her more talkative days when describing her family. "You should be worried about Helga! Right now your daughter is locked away with a bunch of juvenile delinquents and thugs. Who knows what might be happening to her right now, and all you can think about is how it affects _you_!" He began to breathe very hard and he said, "Don't you care about her at all?"

When he said that, Arnold instinctively knew that he might have gone too far, now looking at the outraged look on Big Bob's face. Normally, Arnold would never have shouted like that. It wasn't in his character. He just needed to let out his anger and outrage over what he saw as nothing less than neglect.

Big Bob slowly said, in a very shaken and angry tone, "Boy, you better get out of here right now before I beat the living snot outta you."

Arnold wanted to apologize for what he said and how he said it, despite the fact that he believed the things he'd told to Bob were totally true. Instead, Arnold came to the conclusion that he'd already said enough and just left, walking away quickly. He could feel Big Bob's eyes on the back of his neck as he did so.

'_What in the world is wrong with me?' _He asked himself, now very confused. _'First, I get angry and snap at Gerald and Phoebe, and now I yell at Helga's dad? I swear I think I'm starting to lose my mind._' He sighed, stopping in mid-step and turned to go back and apologize to Big Bob, not for his words, but for the way they came out.

He took a step, thinking about how he would say them, when he looked up and felt himself stop again in mid-step, this time almost tripping. The sight that greeted him made him blink in stunned surprise. He blinked again, but the image was still before him.

Big Bob Pataki, the biggest jerk and loudmouth that Arnold knew, the man who always compared his younger daughter to her older sister, or called her simply "the girl" . . . was crying.

He was sitting on the third stair of the stoop, his briefcase and hat laying beside him along with the folder with the other pictures. In Big Bob's left hand was one of the larger eight by ten photos of Helga. He was looking at it, tears falling from his cheeks and shaking. He then bent over and put his right hand over his eyes and began to sob, shaking badly as if suddenly coming down with the chills.

Arnold walked back over, realizing just how wrong he'd been. Big Bob wasn't just thinking of himself. He'd probably talked about all that because it did make him angry, but also because it was his way of covering up his own worries and anxieties.

He walked right up to Big Bob and said quietly and meekly, "Mr. Pataki?"

Big Bob looked up at him, eyes read and puffy, looking almost lost. Then Arnold put a hand on his shoulder and said, again in a quiet voice, "I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't have yelled. I miss her too. More than I ever thought I would." He looked at him and Arnold could see the love and worry in Big Bob's eyes for Helga.

He closed his own half-lidded orbs and lowered his head, "I'm sorry for what I said, Mr. Pataki. I know that you love Helga." In his mind, he added,_ 'I know this because I think that I . . . well, that I might be falling in love with her too.'_

Neither of them said anything more, both of them simply stood there a moment, the cool autumn wind blew around them and the first drops of cold rain began to fall.

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_Good news, the next chapter won't take too long. Next chapter, Helga gets involved in an inmate fight! Stay tuned! Read and Review! -D.R._


	26. Part 25: Talks And Fights In The Exercis...

**Part Twenty-Five: Talks And Fights In The Exercise Yard**

As Arnold and Big Bob sat comforting each other over their mutual loss, at the same moment almost fifteen miles away, Helga and her new found friends were going out into the exercise yard after another count back in Dorm C.

Helga walked just behind Trashmouth with PG and Miranda behind her. PG had her brown paper bag in her hand. The sky above them was overcast and the cool air made them all bundle up into their State issued jackets.

The exercise yard was located on the southern side of the facility. It was a vast open area fenced in at the sides from the angles of the building to the inner fence. Those fences were, like the inner fence on this side of Cherry Hell, also topped with barbed wire facing inward. Half of the area, from the single doorway and three stairs that led from the building up to the inner fence was cracked weather-worn concrete, much like the school yard back at PS 118. A couple of basketball goals, with worn red-painted hoops and no nets, were set up across from each other to the far right of the paved area with painted basketball court lines drawn below. A couple of teams were playing while some inmates were sitting on the metal stands near the building watching on, or talking in several groups. Beyond this was the other half, which was an unpaved grass and dirt field with two large soccer goals set up; one closer to the fence and the other near the building with more metal stands behind the latter one. Neither goal had any netting in them, just the frames set in concrete at the base. The field was currently being used by some older inmates from another dorm for a game of baseball. More inmates watched them or talked among themselves on the stands. Beyond that field was another fence at the far side of the building.

Helga put her hands in her jacket pockets, her fingers already beginning to feel numb. Next to her Miranda did the same thing, while Trashmouth lit another cigarette. PG went off on her own toward the corner of the inner fence and the separating fence with her bundle, reached into the brown paper bag and began to sprinkle some crumpled bread around herself. Almost all at once the pigeons began to land and eat up the morsels Pigeon Girl laid out for them. She sat down and started cooing to them and patting some of them, as if they were faithful pets. Helga shuddered a little. Pigeons were not much better than flying rats as far as she was concerned.

Trashmouth led Helga and Miranda toward the inner fence not too far away from where PG was feeding her birds. A chilly wind blew and it made Helga shiver a little, her fingers were already starting to turn numb from the cold. Her scalp was beginning to get cold too, from the loss of most of her hair, which was probably going to grow back slowly.

"It's going to start snowing sooner this year," Trashmouth said after taking a puff of her cigarette and blowing out the foul-smelling smoke. "First snow of the season is on it's way. I can feel it."

Trashmouth's idle comment reminded Helga of last year's first snow and the fun she'd had building snowmen with Phoebe and playing street ice hockey near Arnold's boarding house. She sighed remembering those good times.

The three girls made their way over to the fence and stood by it, looking out at the open fields and farmlands beyond. Cows could be seen in the distance. The cool wind blowing more orange, red and gold leaves from the far off trees. The view was obstructed by the two fences that separated the girls from the freedom and open spaces beyond.

"Okay, what are we supposed to do out here?" Helga asked her bunkmate.

Trashmouth seemed to be seriously thinking of the answer and said, "Well seeing as this is really what little time we get for ourselves outdoors, you do whatever makes you happy." She smirked and waved over toward Pigeon Girl and said, "PG has her own thing and at least it makes her happy." She sounded almost envious of that in a way.

Miranda sighed and sat down on the cement with her back to the fence. "How can you be happy in a place like this?"

Trashmouth smirked humorlessly and said, "Your body has to be in this place, but your mind doesn't kid. PG at least has a hobby that she could still do in here that she could on the outside. In that way she's one of the lucky ones."

Miranda sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Usually I just go home and watch cartoons, or call my best friend Holly and talk about stuff that happened at school. My mom would be fixing dinner and the smells would come upstairs to my room." She smiled weakly and then blinked realizing where she was at and sighed again, this time sounding tired.

"So tell me," Helga said raising one side of her unibrow. "What do you do out here for fun, Trashmouth?"

Trashmouth actually looked out at the scenery and sighed wistfully. "I like to stand here mostly and think about what it would be like to be in those open spaces." She smiled a little and turning to Helga added, "I grew up in the city, but I always had a feeling I had a country girl in me somewhere." She then took a puff of her cigarette.

Helga put her hand against the diamond-shaped fencing and looked out at the freedom beyond. Then she looked up at the barbed wire, set in three rows slanted inward toward them at an angle. The sharp, thorn-like metal barbs looked like a bandaid's best friends.

"How about you, Pataki?" Trashmouth asked, taking another puff of her cigarette and leaning with her back against the fence facing her.

"Normally about this time of day, I am playing baseball with my classmates and friends, or out at the docks tossing rocks at dumpsters," Helga said thoughtfully. She already missed being there with everyone, Arnold and Phoebe especially. Heck, right now she would even kiss Brainey on the cheek if he suddenly popped up somewhere and started breathing down her neck.

She wondered once again what was going on out there? Did her friends miss her? What did they think about her being here at Cherry Hell? Did Bob and Miriam actually think about her at all? Did Phoebe worry about her? Did . . . dare she even think it . . . Arnold ever think about her at all?

Miranda began to sob a little. "Why did this happen to me? What did I do wrong?"

"Well, according to your rap sheet, shoplifting," Trashmouth said with a smirk, trying to be funny. It fell flat.

"But I'm innocent!" Miranda said, her now red eyes glaring at Trashmouth. "I never stole anything! Billy told me to hold his bag and wait outside for him! I didn't know there were stolen video games in that bag! I did it to be nice to him because I- because I liked him so much . . . " She began to get quiet and buried her face into her arms. Her muffled voice spoke up again saying, "How could I have been so stupid . . . "

Trashmouth snorted and said, "Because you trusted what a boy told you. All males are lying scum." She spat apparently emphasizing her point, the spit glob hit the fence and dribbled slightly as it fell.

Helga looked down at Miranda sobbing her eyes out. She didn't know what she could do to help cheer up the girl. Tell her that things would be okay? Considering where they both ended up, that idea wouldn't go over particularly well. She looked over at Trashmouth a moment, then knelt down next to her and put a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Look, Riley . . . Miranda," That got the smaller girl's attention. She looked at Helga with very teary eyes. Helga continued, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was!" She said looking at her and wiping her tears away furiously with her sleeve. "He was the first boy I ever . . . that I ever felt anything about. My best friend Holly told me he was bad news, but I didn't care. I'm not a very popular girl in my old school and nobody ever noticed me before except for Holly. Then along came Billy Nash. He was so handsome and so strong and a little bad and he noticed me." She looked at Helga and said, "I'm not very pretty. I have big ears and freckles and other boys used to make fun of me and play pranks on me. So when someone like Billy Nash, who has a motorbike and a leather jacket came along, for the first time in my life, I guess I felt like someone important."

Helga thought about that and seemed surprised at how easily she could understand someone like Miranda.

The brown haired freckled girl then sighed and added, "Not that you would know anything about that, Pataki."

Blinking, Helga looked at her and said raising her eyebrow, "Huh? What do you mean I wouldn't know anything about that?" She was annoyed at being told what she might not understand, but also curious about Miranda's words as well.

Miranda looked at her and said, "Well, your so pretty and smart. You were probably Miss Popularity back at your school."

Helga blinked again, this time totally floored by the statement from the younger girl. "_What?_ You think that I . . . that I'm popular!" She asked as though she thought the girl was nearsighted. Helga never thought of herself as particularly pretty . . . not compared to girls like Rhonda and Lila, or her sister Olga. As far as being "Miss Popularity" . . . she almost smirked at the idea of Rhonda Wellington Lloyd hearing this, she would probably have had a fit and suffered a stroke.

Miranda smiled and nodded, "Well of course you are. You don't have freckles and your ears are not too big . . . you're practically cheerleader material."

Trashmouth smirked and said jokingly, "Do I hear wedding bells in the air." Both girls shot her a look and she only grinned at them and took another puff of her cigarette.

Helga looked back at Miranda and stood back up, again putting her bare left hand with it's cold-numbed fingers against the fence. She looked out at the fields. "I'm not a very popular girl at my school either. Heck, at my school, most of the kids are scared of me."

Miranda blinked and said, "T-they are? Why?" She seemed confused.

Sighing Helga continued, "In my school I am, or rather was, one of the meanest bullies there. Not that I ever took any kid's lunch money, or beat people up randomly, or anything like that. I just had an image that I needed to keep up because . . . " She paused here not really wanting to go on about Arnold to either of them. "Well, because I was always too afraid to show my kinder side to people. I worried that if I did, they would walk all over me and I would be made fun of. I never thought that I was very pretty or funny either. I know I'm not very kind or thoughtful either. Mostly, I just tried to keep everything and everyone at arms length." She then grew very quiet and sighed tired now.

Miranda looked at her, seemingly amazed by that and was no longer crying, though her eyes were still somewhat red. Trashmouth looked at her a little thoughtfully and offered her a lit cigarette. "Here, it helps sometimes."

Helga actually smiled a tiny bit at the sincerity meant in the gesture and said, "Like I said, Shannon, I don't smoke."

The red-haired girl smiled back at her without much humor and said as she retracted her hand and moved the cigarette back toward her mouth, "Neither did I, until I got sent to this hell hole."

"Pataki!" Miranda's meek voice yelled out suddenly, making Helga looked over. The smaller girl was pointing behind her, eyes widened.

Then, without any sort-of warning, Helga felt something very big hit her hard from behind which slammed her, face first, into the fence and practically knocked all of the air right out of her. She bounced off of the fence, which shook from the impact of Helga's thin body hitting it hard, and landed hard on her back on the concrete. She closed her eyes in pain, her nose hurt where it hit the fence. Opening her eyes, Helga looked up into the face of The Bear, who looked down at her very angry indeed.

"You thought that was really funny, humiliating me in front of the entire mess hall, huh _bitch_! The larger girl hissed through her teeth, brown eyes blazing at Helga.

Helga was suddenly very afraid for herself and began to feel the pain from the scrapes that she'd gotten. She looked up at The Bear and felt very small and insignificant by comparison. "N-no, I didn't, honest!" Helga said shaking her head. Her breath was coming quicker from the anxiety she felt. "Look, I don't want any trouble . . . " She felt her body shaking with fear.

The Bear smirked at her and said, "Aww, what's the matter, Cherry? Are you going to start crying? Little baby!" She spat, then made a crying face and began taunting Helga, not too much like Harold usually did.

All at once, Helga found some of her old anger come back to her and she stood up. She also realized that several other inmates, including Bowers and Pena were watching on and laughing.

As quickly, as she'd done with Cookie and Simone a few days before, she went over her options quickly inside her head. She could just let the older inmate taunt her and make herself look like a wimp in front of the other inmates. She could fight back, but she also knew she would be no match trying to overpower the larger girl. Or she could stand up for herself. The Bear reminded her of Harold or Big Patty in many ways, perhaps most of her behavior was all a bluff?

Helga put on her best intimidating glare and said, "Hey who are you calling a baby, you fat cow?"

All at once, all of the laughter died off. The inmates were watching intently now, some with anticipation of what they hoped would be a fight. Trashmouth and Miranda both watched on worried for Helga's immediate health, although Trashmouth had a small smirk on her face at Helga's boldness. Bowers and Pena watched carefully. Over near the building's entrance, Ms. Walker also watched the altercation carefully, making no immediate move to break up the gathering.

The Bear's taunting ended and her eyes narrowed into slits. "What did you call me, you bitch?" Her large hands curled into fists nearly the size of Helga's head with very hard-looking calloused knuckles.

Helga seemed to realized all at once that she'd put her foot in her mouth.

Before she could say anything else, one of those large fists reached out and grabbed Helga's jacket front and jacked her up with her back against the fence hard, making the metal structure shudder. Helga's head bounced off as she hit and then the other fist slammed into her face hard, the sound of knuckles meeting her face was sickening and instantly reminded her of a sound she once heard before at Green Meats when Mr. Green toss some meat onto the cutting board.

All around her were chants of, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" from many female voices. She felt something warm begin to trickle down her mouth as stars danced in her line of vision. Her nose throbbed. She was struck again, this time in the left ear, the pain felt like someone just stabbed her face with dozens of needles. There was a small buzzing in the ear even as she could hear her pulse pounding in it. The Bear's snarling face glared at her, her eyes bright with a terrible satisfaction over her work.

The pain she felt all of a sudden made her very angry. Her reserves of adrenalin began to pump and she let out a growl of her own. Then, acting on instinct, she grabbed the hand holding her into the fence and bit into one of the knuckles as hard as she could, almost trying to bite a hunk out of her hand. The Bear let out a terrible yell of pain and her eyes closed tight as she let go of Helga.

However, Helga held onto her hand and as she felt herself fall no longer being held up against the fence, kicked out with her feet really hard kicking The Bear in the stomach hard. The older girl actually seemed to pale and her eyes opened wide as all the wind in her was suddenly knocked out of her and she doubled over. Helga pushed off after kicking the girl and landed on her backside on the concrete, her back against the fence.

The chants and jeering grew louder and another guard, a skinny black-haired woman named Miss Ezell came out and blinked. "Come on!" She said to Walker and began to run over shouting, "Hold it! Break it up!" Walker smirked, slowly making her way over at a leisurely stroll.

The Bear had reserves of adrenalin of her own too and she looked at Helga with a look wild enough to kill, her upper lip pulled back over her teeth in a wolf-like sneer of hate. "I'll kill you, bitch!" She charged at Helga like a raging hippo.

Helga, now only acting on total self-preservation, moved at the very last second just as The Bear, now moving too fast to stop her forward momentum ran face first into the fence making it shudder hard once again. She bounced off of it landing on her back on the concrete, her mouth and nose both bleeding also. She lay there groaning, all of the fight apparently knocked out of her. Helga sighed as she breathed hard, feeling as if her lungs were going to explode.

"Okay break it up you two!" Shouted Miss Ezell as she cut her way through the crowd of inmates that was now stunned that not only had Helga survived the fight, but had seemingly _won_ it! Miranda was looking at Helga worried while Trashmouth smiled and starting clapping and whistling, "All right Pataki! Whoo!" The Bear started to sit up, looking very dazed and Helga felt as if her face were one bit ache.

Miss Walker made her way past Bowers and Pena smirking at the two girls on the ground. As Miss Ezell made all of the onlookers go away, Walker looked at The Bear and said with her sickening fake sweetness, "Second time this week, Parker. We must really like it in The Hole, don't we?" Then she looked at Helga and said, "As for you, Pataki, your also going to The Hole." Then the guard's face turned to anger as she said, "Get up!"

_**To Be Continued . . . **_

_Well everyone, today is a really special day for this fanfic . . . not just that I got over a bad case of writers' block, but also because today's posting marks the two-year anniversary of the first posting of this fanfic! Happy Birthday "Falsely Accused" . . . and a special thanks to all of you who have stuck with this fanfic. You make it all worthwhile and I promise all of you that I won't take another two years to finish it. Stay Tuned for . . . (gasp) The Hole! -D.R._


	27. Part 26: The Hole

**Part Twenty-Six: The Hole**

Miss Walker, along with Miss Ezell led Helga and The Bear inside the building and down some stairs. Then they turned down another unfamiliar hallway which somehow seemed darker than the other hallways she'd seen so far. This was no doubt because one set of the florescent lights that would normally have lit up the hallway was out while another further down was simply flickering. At the very end of this hallway was a gray painted metal door with the words "Solitary Confinement" labeled in red faded letters on the front. Helga could see a camera with a flashing red light on the wall above the door facing down at them.

Miss Ezell hit the button for the intercom on the wall next to the door and said, "Hey Morris, I got a couple of them here for you." A moment later, the familiar buzzing sound of a door being unlocked came from the inside and Walker opened it smirking a little to herself. Helga followed Bear inside.

Inside was a smaller office room that was dimly lit, not that there was much to look at. The walls were painted the same dull gray Helga was now familiar with, with a faded red stripe along the middle of the wall. There was a small desk next to the door they'd entered with some papers and a couple of charts and clipboards on the wall next to a red fire extinguisher. Along the right side of the room was a workstation with several switches, buttons, small red and green lights, and about a dozen small televisions built into the console (only four of which were currently on and showed dim black and white pictures Helga could make out from where she was). Below these screens were numbers. On the other side across from the door were two other doors, one of which was a wooden door labeled "Bathroom" while the other was another metal door with a slot that opened near face-level. It was hot in the room, the heat coming from a vent on the wall over the monitors. A shelf near the doors held twelve cardboard boxes which were numbered in black marker.

Two very grumpy-looking female guards sat at the console, looking very bored to be there. A third, larger woman was standing near the other metal door looking at Helga as if determining how much of a danger she would be. Her hand went to a can of something on her belt, and her eyes fixed on Helga's face. Helga didn't look at her.

One of the guards at the console turned. She was a thin, red-haired woman with freckles and a large mouth. She had a sneer on her face as she looked at Bear, "Didn't we just get rid of you this morning? You must love it down here?" The mockery was clear in her voice. Next to Helga, Walker smirked in wicked amusement.

The guard then turned her attention to Helga and she smirked, "Well, what do we have here? Looks like you been in a fight with a mountain lion."

"More like a bear," Helga muttered, though she realized a split second too late that she should have kept her mouth shut. Walker slapped her hard in the back of her neck. Helga had to close her eyes from the throbbing pain she now felt on her neck adding to the pain of her probably swollen face, tears threatened.

"Keep your mouth shut, Cherry!" She said in an angry tone.

Next to them, Miss Ezell looked at Walker and frowned a little bit, apparently not happy that one of her fellow guards hit a prisoner without justifiable provocation. She said nothing however.

"We'll take it from here, Wilma," the red-haired guard said, addressing Miss Walker as if they were old friends. Probably were.

"Enjoy your stay, Pataki," Walker said quietly as she turned to leave. To The Bear, she said, "You be good now, Parker." With that and one more smirk, Walker and Miss Ezell left the office. The lock on the door clicked. Helga watched them leave.

"Hey princess, this way," the guard who'd addressed the guards said drawing Helga's attention back to her. The red head sneered at Helga and narrowed her small green eyes. "You understand English?"

Helga nodded, not trusting herself to speak this time.

The guard frowned, "You say, 'yes Ma'am' when you're asked a question, you understand, Cherry?"

Helga stopped herself from sighing, she meet the guard's hard eyes and said, "Yes, ma'am."

The guard was apparently not happy that Helga was meeting her gaze. They held it for a long moment and she smirked, "Oh I see, a hard case. I know what to do with hard cases." She sneered and said, "Your name and number?"

"Helga Pataki, seven twelve," Helga answered, turning her eyes away. She could see the guard was more like Walker and was probably looking for any excuse to make her life a living hell. Indeed none of the guards in charge of solitary looked as if they would tolerate any sort of disobedience.

"Parker, Millicent, three sixty-four," Bear said automatically, keeping her eyes away from the guards. She glanced at Helga a moment studying her. Helga noticed the look but didn't look back at her directly. Her face still hurt from the punches she'd taken. Helga was however inwardly pleased to note that Bear's nose was still somewhat bleeding.

The guard wrote this down on one of the clipboards with a pen and then looked at them.

"Ok ladies, welcome to The Hole." She began sarcastically, with a nasty smirk on her face. "Parker, you already know the drill. As for you Pataki, here's the routine. You're going to be taken downstairs to the solitary cells. The rules are so simple even you could understand them. You're here for twenty-four hours. Every hour on the hour a light will come on in your cell. You will stand, face the camera, and give your name and number, no exceptions and no arguments. Failure to answer when you're called for, or any sort-of disturbances on your part, will result in punishments and another hour added to your time. You understand, Cherry?"

Helga nodded and muttered, "Yes ma'am."

The guard didn't ask for her to repeat it louder, but instead nodded satisfied and then said, "I trust that we won't have any trouble out of you, Pataki." She stared at Helga for a moment, then turned to the larger guard by the other door and said, "Take Parker to number five and Pataki to number twelve."

The larger guard, who had curly hair and a uniform that looked almost too small for her husky body, nodded and took a couple of boxes marked with the numbers called out and handed them to Helga and The Bear. The other guard at the work station hit a switch and a buzzer sounded unlocking the door.

"This way you two," the large guard told them, motioning for them to go on ahead. "You first, new Cherry."

Helga walked ahead to the doorway. On the other side was a set of stairs that led down about twelve feet or so to another dimly lit corridor that led off to the right past what looked like a fire hose and reel. There were four single light bulbs hanging from the ceilings showing Helga a hallway with a dozen gray painted metal doors with the familiar faded red Helga had come to know in Cherry Hell. A red light could be seen on the far wall, probably another video camera. The hallway itself was cold, probably because it was underground. Helga could even see her breath slightly. She closed her jacket a bit and shivered.

"Go on," the guard instructed impatiently. Helga walked forward a little way and the guard told her to stop when they got to the door marked "Five." The guard looked at Bear and said, "You know the procedure by now, Bear."

The Bear nodded, muttering, "Yes ma'am." Then Helga saw with shock as she began to strip. She took off her jacket and shirt, then her pants, followed by her shoes and socks. Now all she stood there in was her sleeveless tank top and tight underwear. Helga could see that the older girl indeed already had big breasts and a large belly, though those had been obvious before. She was shivering like Helga was as she placed her clothes and shoes in one of the boxes.

The guard produced a key ring and unlocked the metal door manually. It slid open sideways and Helga felt a blast of warm, almost hot air hit her from beyond. It felt very welcoming.

The cell was more like the size of a walk-in closet with a metal toilet and a bare cot attached by bolts to the floor. It was lit brightly and Helga could see the familiar graffiti and nasty scrawls on the walls. Another door made of cell bars lay inside. These were also unlocked with a key and pulled open.

"Inside," The guard ordered The Bear, gesturing with her head. Not arguing or nodding, The large girl entered and the guard closed and locked the cell door.

Before she could close the other door however, Helga looked up and saw the Bear looking at her. The expression on her face was not an angry one, but seemed to be more regretful and even apologetic behind the bruises that were not on her face. Helga was surprised by this. Was she actually trying to apologize to her indirectly?

Helga realized that somehow, she'd earned some measure of respect from the older inmate. She found herself looking back at The Bear and nodding to her. The rusty metal door shut just as Helga saw The Bear offer her a weak smile. The lock snapped in place.

"This way, Cherry," the guard ordered gruffly. "End of the hallway."

Helga walked until she was at the last door, number twelve. The guard opened the door and again Helga felt the blessed warmth of heat from inside the cell.

"Okay, strip down to your undergarments and place them in the box."

Helga didn't answer but simply began to undress, feeling a bit exposed. Goosebumps already appeared on her arms and legs. She put her shoes and outer clothes in the basket. Her bare feet felt cold on the cement floor. She put her arms across her chest holding her shoulders trying to protect herself from the cold. She watched as the guard unlock the inner barred door.

"Inside," said the guard jerking her head in the direction of the cell. Helga obeyed feeling the blessed heat as she entered the solitary cell. She was also assaulted by some very musty smells, one of which made her gag. It was the smell of animal feces.

From the inside, the cell seemed very small. It was about six by six feet wide with a slanted floor at the center of which was a round drain not unlike the one in the bathroom back in the dorms. The single bunk was against the right wall facing the door. It was bolted to the floor and had a single thin mattress with no coverings or pillow. The mattress itself looked old and was stained with yellow and brown spots. Helga recognized the brown places as dried blood and suddenly felt very sick. The single metal toilet was right next to the bunk and there appeared to be no toilet paper. On the gray painted walls were several bits of graffiti carved into or written on the paint, more crude words and drawings of certain parts of both the male and female anatomy that made Helga blink. These were accompanied with words about certain females and what they supposedly did with and to said parts. They made her feel a bit uncomfortable even though she didn't fully understand most of them.

Looking up, Helga saw that in the middle of the ceiling overhead was a vent cover that was blowing in the hot air and another with a small, slowly rotating fan on the inside that seemed to keep the circulation going. In one corner, Helga saw a camera set into the wall facing the bunk, it's small red light blinked showing it was active. Probably to one of the display screens Helga had seen back in the office. It was set behind a thick plate of glass along with some bright flood lights and a few normal lights that were now lit.

Behind her, the guard was closing the doors without a word. The cell door locked shut and then the metal door closed with a loud bang that made Helga wince. Then overhead the lights that lit the room went dark with absolutely no announcement at all. She was not alone in pitch black.

Feeling for the bunk, Helga sat then lay back on the thin mattress. She could feel the springs of the frame underneath. She waited in vain for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but there was no light at all for her to adjust to, except for a thin crack, just underneath the cell door but it offered no light whatsoever inside the cell itself. The blinking red light of the camera overhead was the only thing she could find to focus on.

'_Twenty-four hours like this?'_ Helga thought to herself. _'How can I survive this? How the heck am I even supposed to know how much time passes? Even if there was a clock, I wouldn't be able to see how much time passed.'_

She tried to get as comfortable as possible. She tried many positions on the uncomfortable mattress and finally settled on laying on her side facing the wall curled up into a ball with her legs up to her chest and her arms around them. She closed her eyes and focused on the sound of her breathing and the pounding of her pulse in her temples. Her face was still sore from where she'd been punched in the cheek and nose.

Helga lay like this for who knows how long, trying to think about something happy to put her to sleep.

'_A happy memory,'_ she thought to herself. _'That's exactly what I need to focus on right now, a happy memory.'_

She thought about the time that she'd meet Arnold when they were both three. That was one of the first and the happiest memories of her life. It was first time in her life that someone seemed to notice her. Even though Arnold did nothing more than to offer his umbrella to her in the rain and walk her to the door, then complemented her pink bow, it was more attention than she'd seemed to get from her parents till then. He was doing nothing more than being who he was, yet that day Arnold touched her heart and left a mark there that remained to her till this day. She found that she could . . .

Without warning a loud buzzer rang in her ears and the flood lights came to life and a voice spoke loudly from an intercom overhead. "Name and number!"

Helga winced, trying to shield her eyes from the brightness. Having been pulled roughly from her warm thoughts, she remembered that she had to stand and face the camera. She sat up and stood then looked at the camera, wincing at the brightness of the lights. The room looked like a haze to her. She said, her voice dry, "Pataki, Helga. Seven-twelve."

Then the lights dimmed and Helga's eyes adjusted again to the darkness. She returned to her bunk and tried in vain to get comfortable again, not that she'd been comfortable before, but at least she'd been somewhat used to the position and was actually relaxing somewhat.

'_Maybe that's part of the punishment?_' She thought to herself, considering these facts. _'Maybe that's why nobody likes coming here?'_

Helga was not comforted by this fact, but at least now she realized what was going on and now had some idea of the time. An hour had gone by.

"Great," she muttered to herself sarcastically. "Only another twenty-three hours to go. Yippie, let the party begin."

She managed to get comfortable again. This time her head began to hurt because of the sudden intrusion of the lights and then the darkness all at once. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to focus on ignoring the throbbing pain behind her eyeballs. She began to see stars before her eyes and sparks of color.

_Criminey!_ She thought trying to shut it all out. She needed another happy thought to pass the time. For the longest time she tried to think of something, trying her best not to give into despair. The mattress felt rough against her bare skin and she scratched a few times. There were fleas in the room. She also thought she could hear the sound of dripping water somewhere below her in the drain.

Again she tried to focus on something positive, a good memory to pass the time.

The memory of her friend Phoebe came to her then. It was of a day back in the first grade when Harold took a chocolate pudding cup from her at lunch. Phoebe cried and Helga, remembering how Harold stole some graham crackers from her in preschool, took it upon herself to stand up for Phoebe. She dumped the whole pudding down the back of his pants after knocking him to the ground. All of the kids laughed at this. Well, all of them but Arnold, who looked at her as if somehow he'd been disappointed. Thinking back now, Helga realized that maybe he had been. She knew that the way she acted to keep up her bully persona made her image a bit formidable, even intimidating to some. Arnold was intimidated by her, at least a tiny bit, even if he seemed to ignore her own petty acts of mockery toward him.

Helga always tried to do the right thing when it came to her best friend. She'd only been standing up for Phoebe, and yet she felt the need to humiliate Harold back, the way Harold humiliated Phoebe . . . and her back in preschool. Maybe . . .

Once again a loud buzzer sounded and the bright flood lights came on, making Helga wince and shield her eyes, trying in vain to block out the bright light.

"On your feet, Cherry! Name and number!" The loud voice spoke out again over her head.

Helga stood, feeling her head begin to pound again. She tried to keep her eyes closed, but the lights were too bright. She once again gave her name and number. A moment later the lights slowly dimmed again. She flopped back on the bunk, making the springs creak a little loudly. She could hear no sounds, except for the ringing in her ears after the loud buzzer and voice blared.

Suddenly, Helga had to take a pee badly. She stood up and acting on instinct felt around for the toilet. She found it a moment later, remembering it was next to the bed and pulling down her underwear sat down. The seat was mercifully warm and she quickly finished her business. She pulled her underwear back up and went back to the bunk and lay down facing away from the wall this time. She looked up seeing the blinking of the red camera light. She considered flipping it off, but then thought better of it. Instead she closed her eyes and tried not to think about the pain in her head or her face.

Helga began to feel her stomach rumbling. She was hungry and it was probably dinner time outside. Right about now Trashmouth, Miranda and PG were probably enjoying more prison food, and Trashmouth was probably joking about what it was. No matter that if smelled as bad as the cafeteria food at PS 118, Helga would have given anything for even a bite of it as her stomach began to moan in protest.

Her throat was dry too, and she needed water. She thought about the toilet a moment then shook her head quickly. There was no way she would be that desperate. She tried her best to make herself drool so she could drink some of her spit, but no luck.

'_They have to feed me and give me some water!_' She protested in her mind. _'They can't let me starve or die of thirst in here! They just can't. It's inhuman!'_

'_No!_' Another, more rational part of her mind spoke up just then._ 'Don't think about the thirst and the pain. Just concentrate on some memory. They will feed you eventually and give you some water. It's policy in places like this. They can't treat you like an animal. There are rules against abusing children, even in juvenile hall. They can't withhold the basic necessities of life as punishment.'_

Helga tried to dwell on that more optimistic thought, despite the fact she wasn't by nature an optimistic person. That was Arnold's job after all . . .

Arnold.

Her fragmented memories went back to another happy memory of her football-headed beloved.

They were in the third grade and playing baseball in the school yard. Helga was at bat. She'd watched all of Arnold's pitches and knew which one he would throw next. A curve ball. She hit it with ease and ran hard for first. The ball was thrown from the short stop, which was Stinky to Sid who played first. He caught the ball as she decided foolishly to slide into the plate. In sliding she scraped her leg on the cement, because she was wearing a dress rather than pants. Her leg was bleeding and Arnold went over and put his shirt around her wound, then tied it off and helped her to the nurse's office. He looked at her with such concern despite her usual attitude with him. The same way he looked at her when she was being arrested and when she was being taken from the courtroom to this terrible place . . .

Again the loud buzzer accompanying the bright floodlights interrupted her happy memories. She opened her eyes with difficulty and groaned as she stood up. The guard's magnified gruff voice spoke harshly, "Name and number!"

Helga's stomach rumbled as she said, her voice cracking and dry, "Pataki, Helga. Seven-twelve." She looked up, wincing as she tried to gaze into the direction of the camera. "Water, please, ma'am." The lights went out again slowly and the darkness crept back into the world she'd known the last three hours.

'_Twenty-one more hours of this? Is it possible?_' Helga thought, beginning to feel despair creep into her being. Three hours alone was unbearable enough.

'_Well, what have you got to look forward to outside?'_ Another voice crept into her thoughts. _'Outside you go back to that dorm with those sadistic inmates and that evil guard Walker. Back into a place where you might wake up and hear the voice of a screaming girl having nightmares about who knows what . . . or those other terrible sounds.'_

Helga shuddered, despite how hot and sweaty she now felt. The room was very stuffy now and the smells all made her feel sick. She felt dirty, and tired. She closed her eyes again, yawning as her stomach rumbled. She covered it with her hands and pulled her knees up to her chest.

The buzzer once again sounded and the light came on, it's blinding auras made her put her arm over her face. Helga was beginning to feel the effects of her thirst and hunger, now brought back to full force by her lack of being able to sleep. This awoke some defiance in her. She stayed where she was.

"Get up!" The loud voice spoke. "Name and number, Cherry!"

Helga didn't move but said, "Not until you give me some water!"

The light stayed on but nothing else came from the intercom. She heard some footsteps outside in the hallway and smiled a little bit. She knew they had to give her some water, somehow deep down a part of her didn't give up. Helga heard the door unlock and slid open. She sat up, now ready to move so she could quench her thirst, though she felt really tired . . .

All of a sudden, Helga felt herself being knocked hard back against the wall near the head of the bunk by a powerful force that touched her and filled her with a cold so intense it woke her up instantly.

The guard behind the still locked barred door was holding the fire hose she'd remembered from before and was not spraying her with water that was so cold it felt like ice. It was hitting her with such force that it felt like she was being cut slightly where she was being hit. Her mouth opened and she coughed when some of the water went inside and down the wrong tube. Finally, the guard cut off the water and Helga fell off the bunk onto the floor coughing out the water. A river of cold water ran into the drain making a gurgling sound.

"There's your water, Pataki." The sadistic guard said in an amused voice. "Oh and you just earned yourself another hour. Don't make me come back in here again." With that threat hanging, the guard shut the door and locked it. The lights went off and again Helga was once again plunged into darkness, only this time she was shivering from the cold water dripping off of her body. Her clothes were stuck to her and she could feel the goose bumps on her arms and back again.

Helga moved back feeling her way over to the bunk, bumping her leg on the frame and wincing. The mattress was now wet and made a squishy sound when she lay down on it. She coughed and shook from the cold, again crossing her arms over her chest and holding her shoulders. She started to cry in despair.

'_Another hour added to this little piece of hell?'_ She thought as her eyes became puffy with the tears she knew she was now shedding in the darkness. The tears mixed with the water dripping down her face from what was left of her hair. Remembering her thirst, she sucked on the end of her tank top. It tasted dirty but it was better than sucking on the mattress.

About two more roll calls later, the metal door to the cell opened and the guard from before stood there behind the bars with a tray of food and a tin cup. Helga covered her eyes against the light from the corridor beyond the bars.

"Your rations for the evening, Pataki," She said gruffly.

Helga sat up groggily and stood up. She was not partially dry because of the heat in the small cell, though the mattress was still soaked throughly. She walked over to the barred door and took the tray eagerly. The meal was made up of little more than bread, a couple of slices of cheese and some apple slices, the cup was full of water. As hungry and thirsty as she was, Helga no longer cared what the meal was.

The guard closed the door and she was again surrounded by the darkness. She felt her way back to the bunk and sat down putting the tray in her lap. Helga felt for the food and quickly consumed all but a slice of cheese that fell on the floor. No matter how desperately hungry she was, there was no way she would eat off the floor . . . again. She swallowed only part of the water since she couldn't be certain when she would get more.

All of a sudden, Helga heard a noise that made her heart stop. It was a low squeaking sound in the darkness beneath her bunk. At first she thought maybe she was getting paranoid and it was the springs of the bunk. She was about to laugh at her own silliness when something crawled across her foot. Something hairy.

Helga froze and her heart leaped, now going a hundred miles an hour.

The lights came on suddenly and the voice overhead called out, "Name and number!"

Helga looked down and screamed, lifting her feet from the floor and backing up as far as she could against the wall on the bunk, her eyes locked on the huge gray rat that was in the middle of the floor, eating the slice of cheese she'd dropped. Her breaths came quickly as she screamed, her eyes widen in terror.

"Shut up, Cherry!" The voice said angrily over the microphone.

"There's a rat in here!" Helga screamed out, not caring what might happen, as long as the evil-looking creature left. The rat looked up at her and hissed like a cat, baring its yellow fangs, its black eyes were reflecting the light, making it look ever more sinister. Helga screamed again and put her arms around her knees hugging herself. "Go away! _Leave me the hell alone!_"

All of a sudden, the guard reappeared with the hose and fired a large blast at the rat on the floor, knocking it against the wall. It scurried back under her bunk and hopefully back into the hole it crawled in from. Then the guard turned the hose on her and fired another blast of cold water at Helga for almost a minute. When she finished, the guard said, "You better be quiet now, girl, or you'll be spending all of tomorrow in there!" The door slammed shut again and the lights went back off.

Helga stayed the way she did for a very long time afterwards trembling and biting her lower lip.

Until her time was up, despite the desperate need to pee four hours later, Helga never again put her feet off of the bunk while the lights were off. She spent the rest of the time (which seemed like an eternity between the checks and because she lost count after the rat incident) in waking dreams and memories, small naps, and fearing for the return of the rat. Most of this time, she simply cried to herself softly in the all-encompassing darkness of The Hole.

_**To Be Continued . . . **_

_Lots of angst, huh? Don't worry, the next chapter will be somewhat better for Helga, I promise. Stay tuned and see what happens next. Read and Review . . . it's appreciated. -D.R._


	28. Part 27: Letters For Helga and a Phoneca

**Part Twenty-Seven: Letters For Helga And A Call For Dr. Bliss**

The light in the solitary cell blazed brightly yet again as the loud buzzer once more woke Helga from her semi-sleep. She cringed and covered her eyes against the light and prepared to somehow stand up yet again, despite how tired she felt. She'd been in the small room for who knows how long. Every time the light came on, she'd tried to keep count of the hours. Unfortunately, after the second hosing down after the incident with the rat, she'd lost count. Fear of more rats coming from out of the walls and fatigue began to take their toll on her. Her back was sore from laying on the uncomfortable mattress for the last day, or so. She was also hungry because the food she was given, which consisted of only three small meals (which she made sure to eat all of the latter two) hadn't been enough to satisfy her hunger very long.

Helga now waited to hear the harsh voice tell her to stand and give her name and number yet again. After a moment, she sat up and placed her bare feet on the cool concrete floor. She was covered in sweat and smelled terrible. Her eyes slowly readjusted to the light. She blinked and could see clearly again, though her head pounded from the headache she received from the too-bright lighting.

The voice from the overhead speaker never came. Instead the iron door was opened and the guard from before stood there. Helga flinched and jumped back on top of the bunk, scooting back against the corner and bracing herself to be hosed yet again. She screamed, "I didn't do anything" She closed her eyes and turned her head against the wall, covering it with her arms. Then she heard the cell-bar door being unlocked and opening. Helga tensed up, shaking terribly.

"Your time's up, Pataki! Get dressed now," The guard's gruff voice said behind her emotionlessly. She heard the thump of a cardboard box being dropped on the floor and the footsteps of the guard leaving the cell.

Helga opened her eyes and turned to see the box with her uniform in it. She stood up and went over, relief flooding through her. Her time was up. She felt her eyes stinging from tears she wanted to shed. She wiped her eyes with her sweaty arm and then began to dress quickly. Her mind, though still slightly dulled from the lack of decent sleep, began to work quickly.

Twenty-six hours. That's how long she'd been in there, considering she'd been punished twice and had another hour added for both times. She groaned even as she put her prison shirt on, not really buttoning it, and then her pants. She knew she needed a bath, though she realized that a cold shower would probably be what she'd have to settle for. She picked up the box with her coat still inside and walked out of the cell. The guard, who'd waited on her in the dark hallway, closed the cell doors and told her to move.

Helga made her way back up the hallway and stairs and back into the room where the guard's monitored the other inmates. Helga, while waiting on them to let her out, watched as a skinny brown-haired guard flipped a switch that sounded the familiar buzzer and light in one cell. The monitor showed the inmate stand up groggily while the guard spoke into the microphone on the desk. "Name and number."

"What are you looking at, Cherry?" Another of the guards said, looking at Helga annoyed and opened the door for her. "Get outta here and say out of trouble."

'_Easier said than done,'_ Helga thought to herself. At another time, she might have said that aloud sarcastically, but she's somehow learned some verbal restraint in the last day or so. Instead she picked up her coat, leaving the box on the floor, then left the Solitary office and made her way back toward Dorm C. Maybe it was because she was tired, or because she feared that someone might jump out and beat her up or something, but the hallway suddenly seemed much more sinister to her. More shadowy, and far too quiet.

Helga ran all the way to the dorm.

Thankfully, it seemed that Miss Walker was not on duty tonight. The guard that let her in was a beefy-looking red-haired woman whose name tag said her name was Miss Jenkins. She didn't talk to her but just nodded and checked Helga's name off on a clipboard, then she opened the cage letting Helga back into the dorm.

Helga walked to her cell. The door was open and Trashmoth was sitting on her bunk reading a comic book. She saw Helga and blinked, "Wow, you definitely look like crap, Pataki."

Helga muttered sarcastically, "Thanks a lot." She shut the door and then went over to her bunk, took off her prison shirt and lay down, letting out an exhausted sigh. Her back and some other muscles ached badly and her stomach rumbled making her groan.

Trashmouth's head suddenly appeared looking down at her from the upper bunk. She handed Helga a couple of dinner rolls. "Here ya go. Me, PG and Riley pitched in. The Hole can be hell on the stomach, believe me I know."

Helga sat up and eagerly took them. "Thanks," she told the redhead, this time meaning it earnestly. She began to chow down.

"Hey, no problem," Trashmouth told her, brushing it off as if it were not a big deal. Then her head disappeared and Helga heard her lay down on her bunk. "The Bear got out just before you did, about a few hours ago."

Helga was just finishing up her second roll and stopped in mid chew. She swallowed what was in her mouth. "Really? H-how did she look?"

Trashmouth's voice held some amusement as she explained, "Well, as bad as you look, you should see her. I swear Pataki, I ain't never seen anyone else lay her out the way you did."

Sitting there, Helga raised an eyebrow and said, "Do I really look that bad?"

Trashmouth offered down her hand-held mirror. "See for yourself."

Helga thought about it a moment, then took the mirror and looked in. What she saw made her blink more. The cut on her right cheek from the "cherry picking" was now a small scab and the bruise around it was turning a blueish-yellow color. However, the new deep purple bruises on her mouth and left cheek were far worse. Her nose looked a little swollen and scabbed near the bottom of her right nostril with dried blood. She had taken a beating badly. Looking at her reflection suddenly made her a little glad that The Bear supposedly looked worse.

'_Hey you should have seen the other guy,'_ the expression came to her mind suddenly making her snort a bit. She handed the mirror back up to Trashmouth.

"Lovely huh?" Trashmouth said down to her.

"Yeah, I'm a regular blushing bride, doi," Helga said, rolling her eyes sarcastically.

She heard Trashmouth laugh a little. "You're a really funny girl, Pataki."

Helga smiled a moment at that. Then she sobered up a little and asked, "Do you think that The Bear will try and get even with me?"

"It's possible," The older inmate said down to her. "In here reputations are made and broken by how well you take care of people in fights and such. The way you stood up to The Bear made your stock go up a bit here, that's for sure. The Bear, surprisingly, didn't seem to lose any respect though, cause she's still big enough and mean enough that nobody messes with her too much, not even Bowers, Pena and their bitches when Walker is not around to back them up. So I think you'll be okay . . . unless you're dumb enough to go challenge her to a rematch?"

"I think I'll pass on that," Helga said rolling her eyes again, though she did breathe a little bit easier. Her mind seemed to have picked up on the memory of the look that The Bear had given her before being confined in The Hole. The older girl seemed to have granted Helga some measure of respect._ 'Why? Because I beat her by some fluke luck? Because we both had to suffer through the Hole?'_ Helga tried to make sense of it, but she was so tired.

"So, I take it that you had to stay a couple of extra hours?" Trashmouth asked her, though seemed to know the answer already. Instead of waiting on a reply, she added, with good humor in her voice, "Well, look on the bright side, at least now you can get some decent rest, it's nearly lights out."

Helga smiled a little pleased that she would finally get some proper sleep for once. She was so tired at this point that she thought she would be able to sleep through an earthquake.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot, you got a letter this afternoon. I put it under your pillow," Trashmouth said and yawned. Then she moved above Helga, no doubt getting ready for bed. "Goodnight, Pataki."

That bit of news sent a small reserve of energy through Helga and made her sit up. She pulled back her pillow and saw the envelope. Her heart pounded a little, happy that someone remembered her. She picked it up and looked at it happily. It was a small, letter-sized white envelope, with her name written on the front in blue ink. Phoebe's name and address were written in her small, neat script at the top left corner.

She smiled as she thought to herself,_ 'Good ole Phoebs.' _Her smile faltered then turned into a regular frown, when she turned the envelope around and saw that it had already been opened and resealed with clear scotch tape. The tape and back had been stamped over with the words** "**Passed Inspection" in red ink. _'Criminey! I don't_ _believe it!_' She thought angrily at the idea of some juvenile administrator reading her private mail. _'What the hell did they think was in there, a knife? Breakout instructions?' _She didn't know, or really care at this point.

Helga tore open the envelope and pulled out two folded sheets of notebook paper. From one of these, something small and square fell out and landed on the floor and her feet. She looked down, then reached over and picked up the small plastic square that she now realized was a photograph. Helga turned it over and blinked, surprised at what she saw. It was one of the recent pictures of Arnold that was taken last month for the school yearbooks.

Vaguely, Helga remembered plotting a way to somehow steal one of them for her locket a couple of weeks ago. She looked down at the photo of Arnold, who looked back up at her, smiling back in that cute, almost amused way of his, green eyes set in his usual, half-lidded gaze. Small blue cap perched at an angle atop his head, between the turfs of golden blonde hair. Right now she was in a very happy place in her mind, far, away from Cherry Hell, from sadistic inmates and foul-tempered administrators.

Absently, Helga ran her finger along the image of her football-headed love interest. A small smile of amusement crept over her face. '_I wonder how Phoebe_ _managed to get this picture?'_ The idea that Phoebe would come up with a plot of her own and steal it from Arnold somehow was laughable. The most likely thing that Helga could think of was that Arnold probably gave Phoebe one and she included it with her letters to try and cheer her up.

'_Well, it's working,'_ She thought to herself smiling down at the photo in her hands.

She set the photo aside lovingly, face up next to her on her pillow. Then Helga tucked her legs underneath her Indian style and leaned back against the wall as she turned her attention to the letters.

Across one of the folded sheets of notebook paper, again in blue ink, was written: _From Phoebe, Read This First_. Curiously, Helga unfolded the notebook paper and saw more words written in the same blue ink in Phoebe's small, neat handwriting. She read it, hearing her best friend's meek little voice in her mind as she did so:

_Dear Helga,_

_Um, well it's probably inappropriate of me to ask "How are you doing?" under the current set of circumstances, however, I hope that you are faring well and adjusting to things in Cherry Hill. I truly miss you a lot Helga. It gets really lonely at school without you there. I miss our walks home, our phone conversations and our talks at lunch as well as recess. Arnold and Gerald both have been wonderful friends to me in your absence and have taken to including me in their company more often at school. They walk with me after school, Arnold always has to turn away after a couple of blocks, living in the opposite direction, but Gerald stays by my side with me until we get to my house. He also talks to me on the phone more often now as well about various topics.  
Unfortunately, the rest of the class believes that you did indeed set that fire, but I don't think that for a minute, and neither do Gerald, nor Arnold.  
Arnold asked me to include a letter of his own with this one. I think it would surprise you to know that he seems to have taken your incarceration rather hard and has since refrained from associating with, or hardly speaking to the rest of the class because of their acceptance of your wrongful arrest and imprisonment. Not that I blame him at all.  
Well, I better finish because lunch and recess period are just about over. Please take care of yourself. I promise to write to you again as soon as possible._

_Sincerely Yours,  
Your Best Friend, Phoebe_

Below this was more, also written in blue ink, but in a different handwriting. It read:

_I believe in you too, Helga. Hang in there. Also Your Friend, Gerald_

Helga blinked and smiled slightly at Gerald's little addition to Phoebe's letter. Even though they'd never been on more than barely tolerable terms in the past, she was very happy to see that he too believed in her innocence.

She looked back over Phoebe's words at the part about how Arnold was taking her imprisonment hard and wanted Phoebe to include a letter of his own with hers. She looked down at the picture of him smiling up at her and blinked again. Could he possibly have sent her one of his own pictures himself along with the letter? Did she dare to believe that?

'_Only one way to find out Helga ole girl,'_ she thought to herself as she picked up the other folded notebook paper and eagerly unfolded it. She would have recognized the loopy handwriting anywhere. She smiled and started reading the words, written in black ink, hearing in her mind the sweet voice of her beloved as she went along:

_Dear Helga,_

_To be honest I'm not really sure how I should start this letter off. I guess "How are you?" or "What's it like there?" would sound really lame, huh? Phoebe told me that she was writing a letter to you and I felt the need to write to you also.  
Things around her have been very dull and boring without you hanging around. Phoebe has been really sad all the time. Me and Gerald do out best to help her, Gerald in particular goes out of his way for her, but I know that neither of us could ever be a replacement for you.  
I really miss you a lot too, Helga. That may sound strange coming from me, but you have always been there. You're a part of my life. Sometimes, when you acted really mean, I would wonder what it would be like to have even one day without you there to annoy me. But now that I've had several day without you around, I can't help but feel like an important part of my life was missing. I know that may sound weird, but it's the truth.  
I keep thinking back to that fire, about how worried and scared I was thinking that you could have been inside when it happened. Also, I think about that walk home we took together and how happy all of us were to be okay. Then, all of a sudden, reality comes crashing back down and I miss you all the more. I really wish you were here, Helga.  
Also, I wanted to apologize to you. I keep thinking about that promise I made to you. About how I wouldn't let them blame you for that fire. I'm sorry I couldn't have been more help. Most of the rest of the class, with the exception of Gerald and Phoebe are convinced you did it, but there is nothing that can convince me of that. I know it looks bad, with all the evidence, but I also know you could never have set that fire. Not in my heart.Don't give up Helga. There is still time before your appeal and I promise that I will do everything I can to try and prove your innocent. Until then, please try to hang in there and stay safe. You're always in my thoughts and prayers. Write back soon, if you can._

_With Love, Arnold_

_P.S. Enclosed is a picture of me from our yearbook photos. I wanted you to have one, I guess in case you ever think about me. I plan to borrow one of yours also, because I think of you a lot too. Hope you don't mind? -Arnold_

Helga felt her heart pounding hard in her chest. _'No way!'_ She thought to herself reading Arnold's letter again. She had to fight back the squeal of joy that threatened to rise up out of her chest. He still believed in her! Not only that but he signed it "With Love, Arnold" and he _actually_ sent her a picture on his own! She reread the "With Love, Arnold" part again and thought she was going to die right there from joy. Only an hour ago she was in the Hole and giving into despair, and now, thanks to Arnold . . . her own beloved Arnold . . . she was overcome with joy. She held the letter to her chest and sighed out loud.

Trashmouth snored above her, already asleep. Good, no embarrassing questions or answers she couldn't give.

She picked up the picture and looked at the smiling face of her football-headed prince charming and held it as if it were her lost locket. Then she whispered softly, "Oh Arnold, my love, my little angel of reason! My heroic defender or truth! You really do believe in me and care for this poor retched soul? Thank you, my only . . . my one true love!" She kissed the picture lovingly.

The intercom came to life in the dorm and a voice said, "Eight o'clock. Lights out! Get to your bunks!" There were the usual grumbles outside and some girls shouting things, but Helga didn't hear them. For a few, all to brief moments, she felt like she was flying over the clouds.

The lights went out promptly a moment later, breaking the spell slightly, but not completely. Helga lay back on her pillow and put the letters back in their envelope. She placed the envelope in the springs above her. She then put Arnold's picture in the springs next to it, right above her head where she would be sure it would be the first thing she would see when she woke up the next morning. She smiled and traced the line of his smile with her finger before yawning. Then she put her arms behind her head and closed her eyes. Not long after that, Helga fell asleep with a smile on her face

Helga dreamed a wonderful dream that night about her and Arnold walking together happily on a beach hand in hand and kissing in the light of a beautiful orange sunset. For now, all she had was the beautiful dream of her one true love.

It would be the last good dream Helga would have for the remainder of her time at Cherry Hill Juvenile, but she did not know that yet.

* * *

That same evening, fourteen miles away, back in the city at the Hillwood Medical Center, Dr. Bliss was just finishing up for the day and preparing to go home for the evening. She was sitting behind her desk and putting away her most recent files in the compartments in her bottom left desk draw. 

It had been a somewhat slow day at the office for her. Only two regular patients, both of whom needed little more than someone to listen to their problems and talk about them with. That, of course, is what she was there for. She smiled as she was just taking a sip of her hot green tea when the buzzer on her intercom went off and her secretary's voice spoke.

"Excuse me, Dr. Bliss?"

Dr. Bliss reached over and pushed down the red button below the speaker. "Yes, what is it, Dawn?" She asked pleasantly.

"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything," the voice over the intercom began.

Smiling Dr. Bliss said, again pushing the bottom. "You're not interrupting anything, in fact I was just about ready to leave, but you caught me fair and square," she chuckled in good humor.

The secretary's voice seemed to pick up on the humor and laughed. "That's good. You have a call on line one from Cherry Hill Juvenile Corrections."

Dr. Bliss suddenly sat up a little straight and blinked slightly confused. _'Somebody calling me_ _from Cherry Hill? Helga?'_ She pushed the button on the intercom again and said absently, "I'll take it, thanks."

Then she turned to the phone and pushed the button with the white blinking light on it at the bottom. Putting the receiver to her ear, she spoke pleasantly but still curious, "Hello, Dr. Bliss speaking?"

"Chris? Is that you?" Came the sound of a very familiar voice over the line.

Dr. Bliss blinked again, then she recognized the voice and felt a grin come over her face. "Jenny Lang?" It had to be. Nobody else ever used that nickname for her other than her parents.

The voice on the other end chuckled and said, "The one and only."

Jennifer Lang and her had both been friends together in college, both of them studying Child and Juvenile Psychology. Each of them received P.H.D.s and went on to graduate with honors. In college they'd been inseparable.

Unfortunately, as things often worked out in life, their careers took them away from one another and they gradually lost touch after devoting much of their lives in pursuit of their careers.

"Oh my gosh, how long has it been?" Dr. Bliss said smiling more and relaxing in her chair.

"About just over two and a half years, I think?"

"How are Edmund and the twins doing?" Unlike Dr. Bliss, who was single at the moment, Jennifer Lang had already been married to a good man and had two beautiful twin daughters.

"Oh, Edmund is working hard at the office and the twins are growing like weeds. How are you and Craig doing? Still, having those late night 'sessions' on the couch?" The voice on the other end asked teasingly.

Dr. Bliss sighed and said, "Well, me and Craig broke up two years ago, Jen."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Chris." Jenny's voice sounded slightly embarrassed.

Dr. Bliss smiled and shook her head, even knowing that doing so couldn't be seen on the other end. "It's okay, and we're still friends. He and I were headed in two different directions. He's in Seattle now and married. I get an e-mail from him every now and then."

"I see, well, that's good."

Dr. Bliss could sense that the small talk was almost over and she asked, "So, what have you been up too lately? I had no idea you were practicing around here."

"Same here," she said chuckling. "I hope I didn't call you too late or anything?"

"Not at all. I was about to leave for the day, and I assure you, it's no bother at all to hear from you." Dr. Bliss said, meaning every word.

Dr. Lang's voice seemed to sound a little more happy when she said, "Thanks Chris." Then she seemed to clear her throat and get serious. "I've been here at Cherry Hill for about a year or so. Edmund moved his practice here also. He works at St. James Hospital now."

"I see," Dr. Bliss smiled more. "I only just arrived here a few months ago myself. The local school board has me as school psychologist over a couple of schools close by."

"In a way, that's the reason I called," Dr. Lang said apparently now getting down to business. "I needed your insights about a new arrival here at Cherry Hill, one Helga Pataki."

Dr. Bliss suddenly became less relaxed and sat up in her chair again, "Helga? How is she doing? Is everything all right with her?"

"Christine, she's okay, I promise," Dr. Lang said quickly, her voice sounded a little astonished by Dr. Bliss's own worried tone. "I only wanted to call and touch base with you about her. I saw your name mentioned in her file when I interviewed her the other day. I was a bit surprised to say the least."

"Oh, I see," Dr. Bliss began to relax again. "I'm sorry if I sounded a bit anxious there. Helga has been on my mind ever since she was sentenced. I'm a bit concerned for her."

That was a big of an understatement if there ever was one. Dr. Bliss had been thinking of Helga a lot since that day she last saw her being carried away by the police in Juvenile Court. Since that moment, Dr. Bliss had been concerned about Helga's physical, as well as her psychological well being. She was convinced that Helga was innocent, despite the circumstantial evidence linking the girl to the crime scene. Dr. Bliss only needed that one hour the first time her and Helga met to know that Helga was no criminal.

The other night, Dr. Bliss had a hard time sleeping thinking about what it must be like for Helga in that prison cell, knowing she was innocent, and yet treated like other juvenile delinquents. She was probably terrified, feeling horribly exposed to other prisoners, and so depressed by people treating her as if she were really guilty. Dr. Bliss thought of herself in the same situation and could only shudder at the idea.

Dr. Lang said, "Well, I wanted to know if it would be possible for you to come down to the facility Saturday? I have some questions I would like to ask you about her, and . . . well . . . I also confess that it would be great to see you again, Chris."

Dr. Bliss smiled and said cheerfully, "You know, I believe that I have time on my busy schedule to take a little trip." She giggled and, on the other end, Jenny Lang chuckled also. Then she added seriously, "Oh, and if it's possible, I would also like to talk to Helga too."

"That can be arranged. Visiting hours on Saturdays are between ten in the mornings and five in the afternoons. The residents are allowed to have ten minutes with friends and loved ones. I'm sorry it's not much longer or anything, policy."

"That will be fine." Dr. Bliss said, smiling a little and adding, "I will be there sometime that morning. It will be good to see you again. Maybe we can do a little catching up on recent developments also?"

Dr. Lang's voice sounded pleased and she answered, "I'd really like that, Chris. Looking forward to it."

Dr. Bliss smiled and said, "Thanks Jen, I have to go now, my time is up and this secession is over."

Both psychologists laughed over the joke and Dr. Lang said, "Good talking with you too, Chris. See you Saturday, goodbye."

"Goodnight Jen." She told her old friend a moment before the click on the other end told her that she'd hung up. Dr. Bliss put the receiver back in place and suddenly felt slightly better for Helga, and for herself.

**_To Be Continued . . ._**

_Finally, some good news for Helga. Soon Helga will be getting at least one visitor . . . maybe more soon also? Will Helga's good fortune last? Stay tuned to find out . . . also be sure to read and review, I am interested in your thoughts as well. -D.R._


	29. Part 28: Trashtalk From Trashmouth

**Part Twenty-Eight: Trash Talk From Trashmouth**

The loud buzzer and the lights being switched on woke Helga up at the usual 6 A.M. the next morning. She moaned, fighting to stay consciousness and remain in the beautiful dream she was having of her beloved Arnold. She turned on her side facing the wall, trying her best to shut out the light.

"Name and number, Cherry!" A gruff voice spoke up suddenly. Helga's eyes widened and she sat up quickly, bumping her head into the top of the upper bunk in the process. The bunk shook and the picture Arnold sent her fell from it's place in the springs, landing next to her pillow. She heard a laugh, then opened her eyes to see Trashmouth standing there smirking and shaking her head, "Sorry Pataki, I had to get you up somehow."

"Criminey, don't you _ever_ do that again, Trashmouth or you'll be wearing my knuckle prints on your face!" Helga grumbled as she rubbed her forehead in the tender spot where she suspected a bump would appear later on. She still felt somewhat groggy from the rest she'd managed to catch up on.

Trashmouth held up her hands and said, slightly annoyed, "Jeez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bunk this morning."

"And just who's fault do you think that is? Helga shot back, rubbing her head and trying to get rid of the last bits of sleep. She yawned and swung her legs over the side of the mattress. "It's way too early in the morning, this is cruel and unusual punishment."

A guard's voice over the PA system sounded out: "Five minutes till morning exercise period. Five minutes."

Trashmouth looked at Helga's bunk, saw the photo on her pillow and quickly took it. She looked at it, turned it sideways and raised an eyebrow smirking, "Hey now, who's the little dweeb?"

Helga blinked and was suddenly no longer very sleepy. "Hey, give me that!" She said, snatching the photo away quickly and placed it back under the springs of the top bunk next to the letters, fixing it more securely this time.

"Oh, come on, Pataki, you can tell me, were bunkies." Trashmouth said smiling widely. "He must be the one who sent you that letter. So tell me, what's his name?"

Sighing tiredly, Helga said, "His name is Arnold, and yes, he did send me a letter. So did my best friend Phoebe."

"I see," Trashmouth said, smirking like an idiot. "So, I take it he's your main squeeze then?"

Helga blinked and shook her head quickly, putting up her defenses. "W-what? No! I mean, are you kidding me! Me, and Arnold! No way!"

"Oh, I see, so he wasn't the same Arnold you kept muttering about in your sleep, was he?" Trashmouth said smirking again.

Helga paused putting on her jogging pants and looked up at her, her eyes wide. Her face began to go red at the implication. "Huh? W-what do you mean? I said his name in my sleep!"

Trashmouth nodded and said, "Several times in fact, kept me up longer than the screamer did." Then she lowered her voice and mimicked a really goofy-sounding voice, "Oh Arnold, my love - oh kiss me again my football-headed little love god.." She resumed her normal voice and said, "Sheesh, talk about corny as hell, Pataki. Plus, I think I heard you making out with your pillow a couple of times too." She looked at Helga and laughed out loud at the look of total shock on her face.

Helga was too embarrassed by what she'd been told to respond at first, then she blinked again and said, "I...um said all that?" She sounded a little ill now. She wasn't aware that she talked in her sleep at all. Her face was a very dark shade of red at this point.

"Yeah, you did," Trashmouth said looking down at her. "So, I take it you two have a thing for each other?"

Helga was floored, "Oh um, well...er that is..." She knew that she was turning redder, if that were possible.

Trashmouth looked at her a long moment and actually seemed to think about something. Then she said sounding a bit more serious, "It's okay, you don't have to tell me, let me guess. You like this Arnold guy a lot, but he just sees you as a friend, right?"

The best thing for Helga to have done would have been to agree quickly and get the subject over and done, and she was about to when Trashmouth said, "And here I thought you were a lot smarter than that, Pataki."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Helga asked, now curious by both the words and tone that Trashmouth used.

Frowning Trashmouth said, "Boys are all garbage, Pataki. Deep down, they are all alike. They use girls that aren't smart enough to see them for what they are, then they toss them aside like yesterday's cheese."

Now Helga stood up and glared a little at her, "Hey, you listen to me, O'Feir! Arnold isn't like other boys, you hear me?"

Trashmouth sighed and shook her head, "Yeah, that's what every girl thinks at first, but you give them enough time and they all eventually show themselves to be dogshit. My friend, Sarah, was abused for a year and then damn near beaten to unconsciousness by one of those assholes. Just ask your little pal, Riley. You've fallen into the same trap, Pataki. Your all head over heels for this boy, but he probably doesn't even give a rat's ass about you, does he?"

Helga frowned, "That's not true! If it was, he wouldn't have sent me that picture, or the letter!" Indeed, the fact he sent it along with Phoebe itself proved Arnold _did_ care about Helga, maybe even more than she realized herself.

The redhead snorted, "Oh yeah, now he send you stuff, but what about later on? I mean you're here for at least a month, maybe even a year, if things don't work out for you. By then he wont even remember who you are. All of them are like that, they don't give a damn about anyone but themselves."

"Not Arnold!" Helga said, determined to stand up for her football-headed hero. "He was there when I was sentenced. He believed me when I told everyone I didn't set that fire! He swore to me that he would get me out of this hell hole!"

Trashmouth laughed sarcastically now and said, "Oh, I see, and what exactly can a little sawed-off shrimp like him do to get you out of this place? Not a damn thing that's what. That is, if he actually tried to. You're in here, while he probably out there looking for someone else to be his little groupie."

Helga took a step forward, the anger rising inside her, blood boiling a little. Her fists opened and closed at her sides. Despite the fact that she'd called Arnold a sawed-off shrimp herself on several dozen occasions over the years, she had no intention of letting Trashmouth talk trash about him. "Now you listen to me, O'Feir, I don't care about whatever your hangups are with boys in particular, but I'm telling you right now, if you ever say anything against _my_ Arnold again, you'll have to answer to Old Betsy!" With that, Helga raised her left fist right under Trashmouth's nose. "You got that, Bucko?"

Glancing at the fist, Trashmouth brought up her hands up defensively in front of her. "Hey now, I am only trying to offer you some friendly advice, Pataki." She looked angry still, but there was a small twinge of concern, even worry in her eyes that Helga now saw.

"You can keep your advice when it comes to that, got it?" Helga lowered her fist and started cooling off a few degrees. Then she added, "Look, I understand why you think that way about boys, and you may be right about other boys, but trust me, when it comes to Arnold, your dead wrong. He would never act the same way, he's a decent and loyal guy."

Even though she looked doubtful about this, Trashmouth sighed and rolled her eyes, then turned away as she continued to put on her jogging outfit. "Fine then, Pataki, whatever gets you through the day."

Helga didn't bother to speak to Trashmouth after that. She also choose to stand on Miranda and PG's other side when they were counted and marched out to the fence line for their morning jog around the compound. Trashmouth was ignoring her too, not even looking in her direction as they were marched out through the gate by Bowers and Pena. Helga didn't care, she was still angry.

It was cold outside, mid autumn was beginning, and the first frosts of the year were already on the ground. It was still a little dark, but off in the distance, towards the east, the first glimmer of light was rising, though the gray clouds around it cast it into a dull grayish color. Behind them, the truck with two male guards followed at a respectful distance observing them, headlights on but dimmed a little.

Helga pulled her hands up into her coat's sleeves to try to keep them warm. Next to her, Miranda did the same, the girl was panting hard from the run. Helga took her arm and helped to keep her moving as they began their turn around the eastern side of the facility to the northern side. By now, they were beginning to sweat, even though the wind made their faces cold. Soon the sky was a lighter gray, as the sun came up, though the sunrise itself could not be seen behind the gray clouds. As they turned towards the northern side of the prison, Helga looked off towards the wooded area and stopped dead in her tracks. She was run into by a couple of inmates, who shoved her down and then grumbled at her. Behind them, the truck stopped. She barely heard the inmates grumbles as she looked out at what made her pause to begin with.

Standing on a low rise close to the woods was the same white wolf from before on the road gang. Helga knew this, because even from this distance she could see the patch of dark fur on its left ear. It was standing there, looking right at her. Even though it was too far away to see, Helga could imagine those pale blue eyes staring into hers. It was just sitting there, looking at her, as if it was following her every move. _'It can't be the same wolf',_ Helga thought to herself stubbornly as she stood back up. _'It was miles away from here.'_

Suddenly, Helga felt herself being shoved to the ground hard by Bowers who frowned down at her. "What are you doing holding everyone up, bitch?"

Helga looked up at the inmate meeting her eyes defiantly and said, "I didn't do it on purpose, so stop shoving me, _stupid_!"

Bowers face turned hard and she said, "Who the hell do you think you're talking to, Cherry?"

"That's right, Pataki," Trashmouth said, walking over and standing between Helga and Bowers. "You might want to say it again extra slowly for our friend here. Bowers here has a hard time remembering her name sometimes, without looking at the tag on her underwear." She smirked at Bowers.

"You little..." Bowers began, only to be cut off by one of the male guards, who'd hopped out of passenger's side of the truck and stomped over.

"What is the hold up here?" He asked, frowning and looking at them annoyed. "What's the problem?"

"No problem, Mr. Dalton," Trashmouth said looking at him. "Pataki tripped and Bowers was helping her up. Isn't that right ladies?" Both Helga and Bowers glared at one another not saying anything.

It was clear that the male guard...Dalton...didn't believe them. He sighed and said, "Hurry up and start running again, your wasting time." He turned storming back toward the parked truck with the engine still running.

Bowers sneered at Helga and Trashmouth and started running again, purposely bumping into Trashmouth's left shoulder hard as she did so. Miranda and PG came over also. Helga turned and looked at Trashmouth and muttered, "Thanks."

Trashmouth smiled and said, "No problem, bunkie." With that, both girls silently apologized for the disagreement before and shared a couple of small smiles between them.

As they began jogging again, Trashmouth looked at Helga and asked, "By the way, Helga, what _did_ happen back there?"

PG looked at her and said, "Why did you stop?"

"I stopped because I was startled by that white wolf over there," Helga answered, pointing over and looking. Then she blinked. It was gone again. "Hey, where did it go?" She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Nothing there but an empty hill and some trees.

Miranda looked at Helga and said, "You said you saw a white wolf the other day when we were cleaning the road, too."

"You know, Pataki, maybe The Bear hit you a little too hard upside the head the other day?" Trashmouth said, looking at her strangely.

"Hey, I know what I saw, okay! I'm not nuts!" Helga said, getting annoyed again. Though even as she said those words, she began to wonder, _'Criminey, am I beginning to lose it?'_

_**To Be Continued...**_

_The mystery of the White Wolf continues...he he. A big clue about it will be coming up in a couple of chapters. Sorry this chapter was short, the next one will be a little longer. Next chapter, Helga will suffer through even more hell. Stay tuned. Read and Review. -D.R._


	30. Part 29: The Laundry Room Incident

**Part Twenty-Nine: The Laundry Room Incident and Abigail Palemoon**

After their morning run, Helga and the other girls all went down to the Mess Hall for their breakfast of runny eggs, greasy bacon, hash browns, some toast that was slightly burned on one side, and some of what Trashmouth referred to as "Sutherland's Civil War Sausages." "They're blue on one side and gray on the other," she'd joked to Helga, and in the process, earned a comment from the mess hall trustee on what she could do with both herself and the sausages.

Following this, the inmates were all returned to their dorm for another count and to receive their work assignments. Helga, Miranda, Trashmouth, PG and three others, along with Bowers and Pena, were given laundry detail.

The laundry room itself was on the first floor near the loading dock that Helga remembered from their exercise runs. It was a large room with huge industrial washers and dryers on the left side, both of which were painted gray like the rest of Cherry Hell, with red painted numbers above the doors. Between these were long metal tables for folding clothes. Next to each washer and dryer were carts for the laundry. Hot steam pressers for ironing the clothes were set against the right wall. There were several rooms just beyond these where supplies were stored and at the back of the dorm was a set of open double doors and the loading dock. Overhead was vent shafts and pipes, some of which had cobwebs hanging from them. The dull, grey-cloudy light could be seen through the small, wire-covered windows at the top of the back wall. It was somewhat hot in the room, but the open double doors prevented it from being too stuffy.

A mean-looking red-haired supervisor was waiting for them, as well as other inmates from the other dorms who'd been given this particular work assignment.

"Okay listen up ladies, we got us a large load today from the steel mill," the supervisor told them and looked over toward Helga and her new prison mates. "You four, go out to the loading dock and unload the truck, then hurry back and work on number nine."

"Come on," Trashmouth said to them, then led them through the open double doors onto the loading dock, which was somewhat cold. They walked back where several rolling carts and the back of a shipping tuck awaited them. The doors of the truck were open and inside what looked like about a hundred large white sacks marked "Laundry" in black lettering awaited them.

Another supervisor, this one a thin, unamused-looking brown-haired woman, stood there with a couple of more inmates who were already at work unloading the heavy-looking bundles from the trucks to the carts.

The four of them began to help unload the truck. The bundles themselves were heavy and hard to lift at first. It took two of them at once to move the sacks to the carts. Eventually, once they settled into a routine, they were able to unload about six carts full before the truck was finally emptied.

Once they were done with this, they took a couple of the loads to the washer that they were assigned to for the day and unloaded the bags one at a time. Trashmouth showed Helga how to separate the uniforms and the colors.

It was during this time that Helga first saw the cat. It was a huge black and white cat with one bright yellow eye and a missing tail. The other eye socket was apparently empty, and scars could be seen across its furry face. The cat looked old and very tough and stared right at Helga with its one eye. She backed away slightly, unnerved by the single-eyed cat.

"Oh don't mind ole Whiskers, Pataki," Trashmouth said, as she pushed another set of dirty work shirts into the washer. "He's sort-of the prison mascot. He roams around down here at night and catches some of the rats. Tough a tomcat as they come. Just don't try to pick him up. He doesn't like to be touched."

Helga believed it looking at the cat, which seemed to feel Helga deserved enough attention and turned his head toward PG, who covered her prison shirt up a little more. "Don't even think about it, Whiskers," the weird girl muttered, frowning at the cat. The soft cooing of her pigeon Tony could be heard inside. The cat tilted its head a moment, licked its lips and then walked off (Helga noticed it had a slight limp on its back left leg) behind the washers and dryers, no longer interested in the human girls that intruded into his domain.

"How did he lose his tail?" Helga asked, as she picked up some work pants that smelled like rotten eggs and tossed them in with the shirts.

"Lost it in a rat trap," Trashmouth explained. "The whole floor behind the machines and the storage rooms have them for the prison rats. Waste of time though, most of those beasts are too smart for them. Ole Whiskers has caught lots of them, some almost as big as he is, that's where the rest of the scars came from."

The thought of rats that big close by, probably watching them from their hiding places in the walls, or from under the machines, made Helga shiver slightly, despite the heat of the laundry room.

The washing took about thirty minutes to complete, followed by a similar amount of time in the dryers.

Of course, the inmates were not allowed any idle time from their work assignment. During the time they waited for their own loads to get washed, they were told to help the inmates who were already done with their washing and drying to fold their clothes. Once done, they had to place these in the hot pressers and then place the freshly clean sets of clothes, in order, on some more carts to be sent back to their places of business. It was very loud with all of the machines running. She could barely hear over the noise. Helga guessed that their work rehabilitation was more like a cheap form of labor. Remembering the work gang detail, she even thought of it as slavery in a way.

It was really hard work, and after a short time, Helga began to sweat, her skin felt sticky with it. No sooner had they finished the ones that they were assigned and assisted other inmates with their own assignments, another whole truck load of clothes from another mill arrived to be unloaded and the process repeated all over again.

It was halfway through this next batch of clothes that the supervisor called out to Helga. "Pataki! Go back to the storage room and get another barrel of cleaner."

Helga sighed, very tired and hot. "Yes, ma'am." Then she went to the back to the storage room, taking a rolling cart with her. The barrels of the industrial cleaner were heavy. Also, she'd been told earlier to not let any of it get on your skin while her hands were wet, or in her eyes. Trashmouth explained to her earlier that the stuff was harmless on dry skin, but when wet, it would burn like hell.

The storage room itself was the same as the laundry room, painted the same gray as the rest of the juvenile facility, with vent ducts and pipes along the ceiling. It had shelves full of cleaning supplies all along the walls. Smaller windows were set on top of the wall near the ceiling provided the only light inside. The electric lights themselves were not on.

Helga stepped into the small dark room and was just starting to look around for the bleach detergent when she was suddenly seized by a pair of strong arms. A hand went over her mouth, cutting off the surprised yell she was about to utter. The door closed behind her and the sound of the washers and driers was cut off slightly. Helga still had the ringing in her ears though.

"Hey there, blondie," Bowers sneering voice said into her left ear. "You thought you were so funny out there on the track with your little pal, huh?" She roughly jerked Helga over toward the middle of the room. Helga tried to struggle, but more arms restrained her, then she was pushed to the floor and held down by four inmates, one of which was Pena, who was smirking darkly.

Standing over Helga, who was now pinned to the floor by her arms and legs, was Bowers, who was now holding something behind her back. She kicked Helga hard in the left side with the tip of her foot. Helga winced and shut her eyes tightly, angry and painful tears forming in them.

"I brought you a new friend, Pataki," Bowers said, with glee as she revealed what was behind her back. It was a large rat trap with a huge gray rat caught by the end of its tail in the powerful metal jaw. It shrieked and tried to claw and bite all around it, in pain and anger, its dark black eye was wide and held a terrible fury.

Helga screamed slightly when she saw it, and when Bowers began lowering it down just above her face. She shook her head, and tried in vain to shake off the inmates holding her arms and legs down. The rat was dangling just over her face now, and its little claws began to scrape at her nose. Helga was only a moment or two away from actually wetting herself in fear.

One of the thugs then pulled up her prison shirt and the tank top underneath, exposing her pale stomach. The process was repeated, and Helga could feel the rat's claws on her belly, along with the whiskers, telling her how close the beast's rabid fangs were to her. She screamed louder.

The bullies howled in laugher as they taunted her with the rat. Bowers never actually let it do more than scratch at her, and almost bite her, but dangling it over her face and stomach was bad enough. Its squeals were almost as bad as Helga's own. She wondered where the supervisor was and why nobody heard her screaming or the laughter of the bullies around her.

After a moment more of this, Bowers tossed the rat trap and rat aside against the wall. The rat shrieked once more and then ran off into the shadows, trap and all.

Then, Bowers leaned over and slapped Helga hard across the face before she grabbed a fistful of what was left of her bangs and jerked her head up violently. "You don't think we're so funny now, do you, _bitch_?" It wasn't a question the prison thug expected an answer to. She continued, "Your getting off lucky this time, blondie. Next time, were going to hurt ya bad, you got it?" She showed Helga's head back so hard, the back of it hit the floor. Helga closed her eyes and gritted her teeth in pain.

Bowers then nodded to Pena, who pulled out a set rat trap and placed it between the trapped fingers of Helga's restrained right hand. A moment later, Helga felt her fingers briefly brush against a thin piece of metal before the metal jaw of the rat trap snapped shut with a loud crack over her pinkie. Helga closed her eyes tightly again and screamed as pain instantly shot up her arm.

After that, Bowers, Pena and all of their thugs ran out of the room, laughing and calling out ugly names to Helga.

Helga curled up into a fetal position and grabbed her throbbing hand. Her fingernail was torn and she was certain that her pinkie finger was broken. She moaned terribly.

Trashmouth and PG found her a moment later and helped her to her feet. "Are you all right, Pataki?" Trashmouth asked.

"Do I look like I'm all right! Criminey!" Helga shouted out, holding her hand while PG opened the rat trap and released her sore finger. Helga put her other hand around it, in an effort to calm the throbbing.

"Okay, stupid question," Trashmouth said almost to herself.

Miranda came in a few seconds afterwards with the supervisor, who looked at her and simply frowned. "O'Feir, take her to the infirmary. The rest of you, back to work!"

"Come on, Helga," Trashmouth said, sounding very sympathetic just then. She led her back into the main area of the facility and down another hallway, both of them were quiet, despite a few moans of pain from Helga.

Finally they came to a set of doors marked:** Infirmary**. Trashmouth opened the door for her. Helga nodded thanks and walked inside.

The infirmary was not like the rest of Cherry Hell.

It was not painted the usual dull gray, but in white and it was clean looking, like a real hospital ward. It had almost two dozen beds, with clean sheets and gray blankets, lining both walls. The right side wall had large windows, which likewise had wire screening over them like the rest of the facility's prison areas. At the opposite end of the room was the office, which was inside a nurses station with large windows that likewise had the familiar wire mesh screening inside. A nurse sat behind it, talking into a phone. Several of the beds were occupied with girls, who had bandages on them, or looked really sick. Most of these were asleep, or had a visitor.

"What's all of this then?" Came a woman in a nurse's uniform. She had dark black hair and brown eyes, and seemed to have a set frown on her face. "What happened to you?" She was addressing Helga.

"It got my finger caught in a rat trap," Helga told her, not bothering mentioning the fact that someone deliberately put her finger inside of it.

"Yeah, my bunkie here has a thing for cheese," Trashmouth joked, giggling a little.

"Come on then, sit down over here," the nurse said, leading her over to the nearest bed. Helga sat on the side of it. Trashmouth stayed there with her, smiling encouragingly.

"Nurse Cherno!" The call was made by another younger, red-haired nurse inside the side doorway to the office. Her head stuck out of it as she called out, "We have an emergency out on the exercise yard!" She sounded frantic. "One of the inmates tried to escape and got hurt badly! They said she was unconscious and bleeding!"

"Oh damn," the head nurse said to herself. Then she turned and said, "Abigail! Come over here and take care of this one. Your in charge till I get back!" Without waiting for a reply, she and the other nurse left quickly, both of them had grim expressions on their faces.

As soon as she left, another individual came over to them.

It was an older inmate, a trustee, who looked to be about sixteen, Native American, with long dark hair tied back into a long braid over her right shoulder, dark reddish skin, dark eyes, and some sort-of Indian necklace over her prison shirt. She was in a wheelchair and a bag full of medical supplies was in her lap.

Trashmouth grinned and said, "Pocohontas! Hey how are you?" She then started chanting the last words over and over, dancing like she was performing a rain dance. "Hey how are you . . . hey how are you . . . hey how are you . . . "

Helga fully expected the older girl to start getting mad at her, indeed Helga felt embarrassed by her roommate and turned almost as red as the trustee.

Instead of getting mad, or ever slightly annoyed, the girl actually smiled and asked, "Doesn't that ever get old, O'Feir?" She raised an eyebrow, but still had that curious smile on her face.

Trashmouth only shrugged, but did indeed stop her teasing. She then got serious, "My friend here got hurt down in the laundry. Rat trap on her finger."

The trustee looked at Helga and smiled, "Let me have a look at it."

Helga looked back at the girl and meet her eyes. They were dark brown and seemed to be full of several different emotions that Helga couldn't quite make out over the pain she felt. For some odd reason though, Helga felt somehow that she could trust this teenager. She held out her hand to the trustee, who took it gently. She seemed to know what she was doing.

"Humm, you must be new around here? Haven't seen you in here before," the trustee said as she looked down at Helga's pinkie.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Helga said, frowning a little and wincing at the pain when the older girl tried to move it.

"Sorry," she told Helga and nodded. "Yep, I'm afraid it is broken. It'll need a splint right away." She reached into the bag in her lap and pulled out a wooden tongue depressor and broke it in half. Then the inmate took out some medical tape and bandages and began to apply them to Helga's finger. She put some ointment on her exposed torn fingernail before she bandaged her finger. "Keep this on for a couple of weeks and then come back here so that I can look at it to make sure, okay?"

Helga actually did begin to feel a little better once the finger was made immobile. She smiled slightly at the trustee. Through the whole ordeal, Helga never once felt patronized or addressed with the medical "we" that Miss Walker and every other nurse she'd ever encountered used. "Okay, I will, and thanks." She stood up from the bed and then offered her unhurt left hand. "Name's Helga by the way, Helga G. Pataki."

The trustee smiled and then took her hand with her own firm one. "Pleased to meet you, Helga. I'm Abigail Palemoon. But everyone around here either calls me 'Abby' or just 'Palemoon'." She smiled a little looking in Trashmouth's direction and said, "Of course, some also call me, 'Pocohontas' too."

"Just the ones who love you," Trashmouth said, sticking her tongue out at Abigail being silly again.

Abigail Palemoon just raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Indeed."

It was during this little exchange that Helga noticed something that made her do a double take. She had been glancing down at the necklace that Abigail had around her neck. It was round and made of small colored beads shaped into a design. It was this design that made Helga blink and look closely.

It looked like the face of a white wolf.

"Hey, um Abigail?" Helga asked, her voice sounding as curious as she actually was. "What is that supposed to be on your necklace?"

Abigail looked down at it a moment, then smiled and looked back at her. "That is my spirit guide."

Helga looked at her, raising one side of her uni-brow, "Spirit guide? What the heck is that?"

"It's a friendly spirit that watches over and guides you through your hardships," Abigail said thoughtfully. "Sort-of like a guardian angel."

"But, that looks like a wolf," Helga said, pointing at the necklace.

The older girl only nodded, "Spirit guides are also known by some of my people as 'animal guides' because they take the form of an animal, usually a bear, a deer, an eagle, or a wolf. People usually see them in visions or dreams, but on rare occasions, they appear in solid form whenever the person is in great need to protection, or watching over."

Helga looked at Abigail Palemoon, trying to figure out if she was being serious, or just pulling her leg. The memory of the white wolf she saw on her morning run and the other day on the road gang came back to her and all at once, and she felt goosebumps on her arms.

"Yes, well all of this is very fascinating, Abby, but it's almost lunchtime, and we need to have food, even if it is Sutherland's cooking," Trashmouth said moving toward the exit. "Come on, Pataki, we better get back to the dorm before the next count."

Helga was brought back from her musings by those words and she nodded. She didn't want to get in trouble on top of everything else. She looked back at Abigail and said, "Thanks again, Abby." Then she walked toward the exit where Trashmouth waited for her.

"No problem," Abigail said behind her and turned her wheelchair around to go check on the other hospitalized inmates.

Helga looked back at her once more before leaving. She chuckled to herself. That girl almost had her going for a minute there. _'Spirit guides? Guardian angels that take the form of animals? What a load of crap.'_ Helga thought as she followed Trashmouth back to the dorm, soon forgetting all about what Abigail Palemoon told her.

At least, for now.

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_Well, after a long and boring case of writers' block on this story, I am back with new posts. Let me know if it was worth the wait. Read and Review! Another will be up soon. Next up, the suspense in the story takes a new turn. Stay tuned! -D.R._


	31. Part 30: Disturbing Revelations

**Writer's Note:**_ The following chapter may contain content that some younger readers may consider disturbing. Defiantly one of the chapters that warranted the story's T (PG-13) Rating, though a necessary one. No flames please, you were warned. -D.R._

**Part Thirty: Disturbing Revelations**

The moment that Helga and Trashmouth left the infirmary, they hadn't gone any further than down the length of the hallway when they saw P.G. and Miranda walking over toward them.

"Hey, did you guys hear what happened outside in the exercise yard?" P.G. said to them. "Somebody tried to make a break for it and go over the fences."

"Yeah, we heard about it in the infirmary," Trashmouth told her. "Cherno took off right afterwards like a bat outta hell. Why did they need the head nurse anyhow?"

"Whoever it was got hurt bad. Vance was outside and she told me that it was somebody from our dorm out on grounds duty."

Helga looked over, "Who?"

"Halloway," the smaller inmate told her. "In the room next to yours. She took a run for the fence and managed to get on top before she was knocked off by Walker. She hit her head on the running track between the fences. They say she looks like she's dead."

Helga suddenly felt as if her stomach just shriveled up to the size of a raisin at this news. The frail inmate that got the late night visit from Miss Walker, the one with the nasty bruises and the haunted look. She'd seen her only a couple of hours ago in the dorm during the count. Now she was hurt, maybe even dead . . . and Walker had something to do with it.

"Oh my God," she whispered softly, realizing that she stopped breathing and forced some air into her lungs.

Miranda looked over at her and asked, "Helga, are you alright?"

Shaking her head, Helga said, "No I – I need to sit down."

Overhead, a voice on the intercom spoke: "Attention! All inmates are to return to their dorms at once! Any inmate who has not arrived in five minutes will be subject to disciplinary action! Repeat, all inmates are to return to their dorms at this time!"

"That's our cue," Trashmouth said as they made their way back down the dimly lit corridors to Dorm C. Helga was somewhat happy to see that, instead of Miss Walker, another guard stood there, ushering them in. She wondered briefly what happened to Walker. Was she in trouble for causing the inmate to be hurt? If so would she be fired? Helga hoped so at any rate.

"Okay, line up for head count!" Bower's voice shouted out over the babble of the inmates in the dorm. "Two lines, you know the drill." She looked over at Helga and smirked seeing the splints on her finger. Helga frowned then looked away from the inmate.

"How's your finger, Helga?" Miranda asked as she stood to Helga's right. She looked over at Helga concerned.

For a moment, Helga smiled. The girl reminded her so much of Phoebe in a many ways. "Well, its still throbbing and sore, but not so bad right now."

She was shoved from behind by Pena, who smirked at her, cigarette dangling from her mouth, "Enjoy your little trip to the infirmary, bitch?"

Helga looked ahead and didn't answer.

"Hope you like it in there, because we might be sending you'se there again real soon," she said in her left ear. Then Helga yelled as she felt the burning end of the cigarette touch the back of her neck just behind the same ear.

"What's going on down there!" The guard called out angrily. She looked right at Helga, waiting for an answer.

Helga sighed and said, "Nothing."

"Nothing, Ma'am," the guard repeated, stressing the term sternly.

Helga looked down at her and said, eyes blazing with resentment, "Nothing, Ma'am." The guard seemed satisfied and went back to her list.

Behind Helga, Pena chucked and then flicked Miranda's right ear as she walked down the line behind them. Helga clenched her unhurt fist tightly and shut her eyes, trembling with the anger that joined the worries from before. She bit her lip, almost drawing blood, in an effort to keep her cool somehow. _'Don't get mad, don't get mad!'_ She told herself, taking a deep breath. Slowly, she managed to take control again, though not without struggle.

As they were being counted, Helga could not help but worry about what was going on, and if matters could possibly get any worse.

Dr. Lang stood outside in the hallway of the emergency room, where the unfortunate inmate, Susanna Halloway, was being worked on by a doctor after being brought to the Hillwood Memorial Hospital.

She'd been in her office that morning, going through her file cabinets and sorting them out. Jennifer Lang was never noted for being a neatness freak, but she always wanted to make certain that everything was in some sort-of working order, so that she would have no difficulty finding things later down the road. When she received word of the incident, suddenly her whole day became less than routine.

She took a sip of the coffee she got from the vending machine down the hall, it was black with only a little sugar. It made her feel briefly warm, despite the incredible sense of dread she was going though.

In all of her time at Cherry Hill Juvenile, Dr. Lang had seen many things and been through quite a bit. Among these were the injuries that some of these girls sustained, either from themselves, or from accidents. Only on three occasions had she ever had to deal with escape attempts where the inmate was hurt. Of course, of those occasions, the other two were the results of the inmates being cut and hung up in the barbed wire on top of the fences. On this occasion, the same thing had happened, only this time, not only were the injuries sustained more serious, they were potentially fatal.

Normally, Dr. Lang would not be called upon to be involved with an escape attempt, nor would she have been, had she not run into the Superintendent, Miss Harris and Guard Walker in the hallway on their way to the hospital. She'd been told what had happened in the yard by Miss Harris and, upon hearing which inmate was involved, asked to come along.

Jolene Harris and Wilma Walker were both standing close by, talking with one another about the incident. Indeed, they'd been talking about it ever since the drive down to Hillwood together in Dr. Lang's car. An escape attempt was always a big deal at Cherry Hill, or any other juvenile facility, especially when a guard was involved.

From what Miss Walker herself told them in the car from the back seat, inmate Halloway was assigned to help cut the grass along the prison side of the inner fence with two other inmates. Miss Walker was standing only about twelve feet away, watching them carefully, when the other two inmates suddenly started fighting over something. It was while the guard's attention had been distracted that Halloway tried to climb up the fence. She managed to make it all the way into the six foot high fence and into the barbed wire where she got stuck, at which point she was spotted by Walker. The guard tried to grab hold of her foot, and managed to grab her shoe, when the girl screamed and fell over the other side and landed on the back of her head and neck onto the concrete beyond which knocked her into unconscious.

Dr. Lang was stunned by the whole thing when she learned of it. She'd had an appointment that very afternoon to see Susanna Halloway.

The last time Dr. Lang saw her was the day before. She'd come up to her in the hallway and looked really lost and scared. Dr. Lang asked her what was wrong and the girl looked up at her. She'd been beaten badly by someone, most likely another inmate. Her face was covered in old and new bruises alike. She suspected a bully in her dorm and her attention was suddenly focused.

When Dr. Lang asked her what happened to her, she whispered, in a voice that haunted Dr. Lang then, "I – I'm not supposed to say." The psychiatrist insisted and Halloway responded by saying, in a more panicked voice, "She'll hurt me if I do! I don't want to be . . ." she paused and looked very shaken. "I don't want to hurt again! Please don't!"

Dr. Lang, upon having heard that, knelt down and looked at her, eye to eye. "Susanna, how about you come by my office tomorrow afternoon right after lunch? We can talk about this." The girl looked uncertain and shook her head looking away again. Lang continued, "I promise you, I'm your friend. If anything is happening to you, you can tell me and I will do my best to make it stop."

"You can't help me," the girl whispered and she started shaking. "There's nothing you can do to stop her."

"Who?"

The girl looked down at the floor and shook her head, "Leave me alone! If she knew I was even talking to you, she would _kill_ me!" She sounded terrified now and her bottom lip trembled badly.

"Susanna, look, I know you don't want to be a snitch, and if you let me help you, I can see to it that whoever is hurting you can be transferred to another dorm or something. Nobody has to know you told me, I can think of another excuse." Dr. Lang held out that proposal.

The girl looked back up at her slowly and it almost looked as if there were hope in her eyes. "Y-you can?"

She nodded, "Sure I can. I won't lie to you, Susanna. I don't like bullies and anyone who hurts someone else for their amusement is someone I can't stand." Dr. Lang looked at the girl determined and added truthfully, "If you let me help you, I can make the monster go away. You have my word."

The inmate looked ready to cry and she was about to say something else, when Miss Walker came along and looked at her. "There you are, Halloway. I was wondering what happened to you, time for lock up. I'm sure that we don't want to disturb Dr. Lang here, do we?"

Something about the way Guard Walker spoke always bothered Dr. Lang. It was almost like, instead to talking to the inmates in a friendly way, she talked down to them. Granted sometimes you had to be forceful on juvenile delinquents, especially the guards, but still, she didn't have to talk to them like they were dogs or animals. Indeed, after Walker spoke, Halloway looked very ill, and wouldn't meet her eyes anymore.

"Oh, it's okay, Miss Walker," Dr. Lang told her. She'd never been on a first name basis with the woman. "We were just talking." She stood up and turned back to Susanna Halloway. "Tomorrow, after lunch, my office, okay?" The girl only nodded quickly and turned away, following meekly behind Miss Walker.

That was the last time Dr. Lang remembered seeing Susanna Halloway.

Now, as she stood there, waiting for word on the girl's condition, Dr. Lang wondered if she shouldn't have insisted the girl talk to her beforehand. Susanna Halloway hadn't been a hard case herself, having been sentenced to six months for a charge of involuntary manslaughter. She and another girl had been playing around with a neighbor's car and accidentally knocked the gear into neutral and run over a teenage boy riding his bicycle on the sidewalk. There had been no deliberate malice that Dr. Lang could find when she interviewed Halloway the first time, the girl had been seriously remorseful for what happened. It had only been a terrible accident. The only reason the girl had even got time at Cherry Hill was because the neighbor and the boy's parents insisted on punishment. She wasn't dangerous, or even a troublemaker, though she did get written up for talking back to Guard Walker a month ago.

The whole situation sounded like an act of desperation on the part of a girl, who was terrified of someone and thought she had no other option but to run. Remembering the condition of the girl's face, the swollen black eye and bruised jaw, someone had been hurting her bad, maybe even hazing her.

A red-haired woman in a doctor's white coat and blue hospital uniform underneath came out of the room and looked at them. All at once, both Miss Harris and Walker came over, both of them looking as anxious as Dr. Lang herself felt.

The doctor, who's name tag identified her as Dr. Katie O'Neil, M.D. looked at them with a somewhat reserved expression, as if she were about to deliver some unpleasant news. Dr. Lang's heart sank.

"The girl is in critical condition," Dr. O'Neil announced looking at Miss. Harris. "The fall she sustained caused some severe trauma to her head. Her brain was bruised and there is some swelling which we are taking care off, and she had to have stitches. If she hadn't been brought here when she did, then she most likely would have died."

"Will she make it, doctor?" Miss. Harris asked, looking a bit worried. Dr. Lang knew that most of her concern was not only for the child herself, but for the paperwork she would have to fill out if the girl died on her watch, not to mention the board review from the state department of corrections and a possible investigation into the incident.

Dr. O'Neil's bit her lip and said, "It's touch and go for her at the moment, and she is in a coma, but . . ." She sighed and looked down, "It's not a sure thing. All we can do is wait and pray, but odds are against her pulling through."

Dr. Lang closed her eyes sadly, fighting not to cry. "Have Halloway's parents been notified?"

"Yes, I took care of it, and they should be on their way here soon," Miss Harris answered, sounding a little quiet.

Next to her, Miss Walker looked at the doorway where the doctor came through, a thoughtful and distant expression on her face. Dr. Lang was somewhat surprised by that. Wilma Walker was not the sort of person she thought of as being very compassionate. Indeed, she sometimes got the feeling that Walker didn't care too much about the inmates as young ladies at all. Perhaps she'd misjudged the woman?

Dr. O'Neil looked at all of them and said, "Excuse me, but if you would, I would like to talk to all three of you in the doctor's lounge, if you have time?"

Dr. Lang sensed something was wrong, from the tone which the M.D. spoke. "Is there's something wrong, doctor?"

"Frankly, yes, there is, but I would prefer to talk about it somewhere more private, if you don't mind?" There was a definite edge to the doctor's voice now.

Miss Harris noticed this and nodded, "Of course." Dr. Lang nodded as well, while Walker only looked away from the door and shrugged.

Together all three of them followed the doctor to a lounge at the intersection of the hallway. As they walked there, they passed by other children who'd been hurt, or were sick. A couple of these were two little boys with second degree burns from a house fire, both of whom were moaning in pain while a nurse put burn ointment on their terrible blackened arms and chests. Dr. Lang was reminded for a moment of Helga Pataki, and the crime of arson for which she was accused. Her mouth tightened a little.

Dr. O'Neil opened a door ushered them inside. The Doctor's Lounge was clean and had a couch, a couple of chairs, a refrigerator where the doctor's and nurses kept their lunches, a drink and snack machine, and a counter with several cabinets. On the counter was a coffee maker, a microwave oven, some mugs, plastic and Styrofoam cups, plastic spoons, and some sugar in a container. On the wall was a no smoking sign and a bulletin board with several drawings or notices on them. At the moment, the lounge was empty, except for the four women.

"Please have a seat," Dr. O'Neil told them, gesturing to the couch. Dr. Lang sat on one end, with Miss. Harris next to her. Miss Walker choose to sit at one of the chairs, which was somewhat small for her bulk, but somehow managed to hold her.

Dr. O'Neil walked over and poured herself a cup of coffee in a tan mug. "Would any of you care for a cup of coffee?" Miss Harris accepted, saying that it's been a rough day for her. Dr. O'Neil only nodded and gave her a Styrofoam cup. Both Dr. Lang and Miss Walker declined.

Then the doctor stood in front of them, looking at them carefully a long moment before she began, "I wanted to talk to all of you about something I found that, well frankly disturbs me."

Miss Harris put her cup down and inclined her head. "Excuse me, doctor, does this have anything to do with my inmate's condition?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it does, Miss Harris," Dr. O'Neil said, looking at her in an accusing way, as if she thought Miss Harris were hiding something. Dr. Lang looked up at her curiously, and Miss Walker looked over at the doctor, again with an very annoyed expression on her face.

Dr. O'Neil paused a moment and then said flatly, "It is my belief that the girl has been the subject of extensive physical abuse."

Dr. Lang blinked and leaned forward on the couch. Miss Harris did the same, now curious. Walker just sat there watching, unmoved by the words.

The M.D. continued with her explanation. "When the girl was first brought in and prepped for her operation, the orderlies reported seeing marks on her body. After her head was attended to, I did an examination of the marks in question. Aside from the head trauma caused by the fall itself, this girl shows signs of suffering from some sort-of hazing, or beating. There are wounds on her back, hips, arms and legs that are consistent with the same sort-of beating that abused, or battered children often show. These were clearly done by hand, as well as the bruising on her face. The thing is though, these bruises are not all new. Some of them are older than the others, but they all point to the same sort-of abuse, with leads me to believe that whoever abused this child did so again and again repeatedly."

Miss Harris sighed and shook her head sadly. "Doctor, as you well know, juvenile correctional facilities are rough places, especially for the inmates themselves. The sort-of thing your telling me happens all the time. Unfortunately, our resources are somewhat limited and we cannot control the behavior of other inmates, many of whom are there for severe crimes that would most likely put many adults away for long sentences. I have over five hundred inmates alone, I cannot control what happens at every moment, as much as I wish I could."

Dr. Lang nodded to herself mostly, sharing those worries. She felt really bad now, knowing that her suspicions about Susanna Halloway's behavior were now warranted. She _was_ being bullied by another inmate.

Dr. O'Neil, instead of looking angry or even surprised in any way, just nodded and said, "Miss Harris, I am not blind to your situation, and I do sympathize, believe me, I do. However, those are not what concern me."

Miss Harris looked lost now, as did Dr. Lang. Walker leaned forward now, looking at Dr, O'Neil carefully, now with her undivided attention.

Dr. O'Neil continued, "In my examination, I also found bruises on her neck. Again some of these were recent and some were in various stages of healing. The bruises on her neck show that the person who did it was very strong and left nail scratches. Whoever did this practically strangled this girl, her throat shows signs of trauma, possibly associated with attempted asphyxiation or strangulation. Also, this girl was burned with cigarettes on the back of her neck and on her chest just underneath her breasts."

Dr. Lang looked horrified by the idea of what was being described. She looked over at the poor girl and suddenly had a flashback of being abused by a bully who would take perverse delight in leaving bruises and marks on her body. Dr. O'Neil noticed her discomfort and her shock and looked at her sympathetically for a moment.

Miss Walker spoke up for the first time. "A lot of the inmates are smokers. We try to prevent them from doing so, but it doesn't stop them. They love to find ways of breaking our rules."

"Burning cigarettes on someone is a classic sign of an abusive parent, or an older bully, possibly an older teen, or an adult." Dr. Lang told her, and brought her hand abruptly to a place on her upper arm a moment, having the sudden flash of memory from her childhood.

"I had a similar thought, Dr. Lang," O'Neil told her, looking at her closely now. "I myself see cases of child abuse here all the time." In that moment, both of them shared something in common, their compassion for those put in their charge.

Now Dr. O'Neil returned to her annoyed and slightly worried expression and said, "There's more, and I have to say, it disturbs me a great deal. As she was prepped her for her operation, I noticed dried blood on the inside of her underwear. At first, I thought it was probably from a recent menstrual cycle, then I noticed the age of the girl. While its not uncommon for some girls to go through their period at young ages, sometimes even as young as ten or eleven, I had a suspicion considering the other physical injuries I found while operating on her and later examining them. So, I did another examination and found there was severe trauma inflicted on the girl's vaginal walls, including some really bad tears. This suggests that the girl may have been sexually assaulted."

Both Dr. Lang and Miss Harris looked shocked by this news, even Walker looked at Dr. O'Neal sharply.

"That's not possible!" Miss Harris said, looking torn between irate and confused. "We don't have any male guards inside the facility. Nor are any of them allowed inside, except in an extreme case, such as a riot, or hostage situation. Also, during work details outside the facility, any male guards on duty also have several female ones in case of any such incidents, or to protect the male guards themselves from false accusations of sexual harassment. I can assure you, it couldn't happen on my watch."

Dr. O'Neil nodded and held up a hand, "Miss Harris, I do believe your assessment of that situation. The wounds happened fairly recently, I'd say within the last forty to forty-eight hours. I found no evidence of any semen, but I did find some splinters." At those last words, the doctor closed her eyes.

"Probably from a broom handle or toiler plunger," Miss Walker said, frowning. The other women looked over at her, somewhat shocked by this.

Walker continued, "You hear stories like it all the time. The girl does something to piss off someone a lot meaner, or the leader of some gang, probably for nothing more important that a simple misunderstanding. Then one evening, the girl is attacked in the shower, or bathroom by several inmates who hold her down while the other inmate gives her the business." She had a distant look on her face. "When you've been working Juvenile correction as long as I have, you see a lot of things like it, or worse. They're all nothing but animals. They're bad enough walking the streets like the gutter trash that they are, but when they are locked away, sometimes you feel like . . ."

She trailed off and seemed to come out of her thoughts abruptly. Walker's eyes regained their focus, then she looked up at them and said, "Sorry, sometimes I think I need a vacation." She smiled slightly, though humorlessly.

Miss Harris coughed and said, "Yes, we're all under a lot of strain today, Miss Walker."

Dr. Lang nodded, though gave Walker a slight look before she turned her head and looked over at Dr. O'Neil. The doctor nodded and said, "I believe that assessment of the situation based on the evidence. She was definitely subjected to forced intercourse. The damage I found to her inside when I looked . . ." Dr. O'Neil trailed off and shook her head, looking sickened. "This girl was tormented very badly. That was probably why she tried to run to begin with. She probably felt that she could not escape her tormenter any other way. I'd love to know that those who did this to her were punished."

Now Dr. Lang wished she'd insisted on Halloway coming to her office. This was all her fault. She should have seen the signs. How could she have underestimated the situation so badly? She felt terrible, wanting a long, hot shower; even though she felt that wouldn't make her feel clean again.

"That poor girl," Miss Harris said, shaking her head and standing. "Thank you, doctor. I will have the matter looked into, of that you have my assurances." She offer her hand to the doctor, who shook it and nodded.

"I'm sorry to give you another headache on top of the one you people probably already have," Dr. O'Neal said looking apologetic and very tired. "But it is my duty to tell you about all of this. I am afraid that I will also need to inform the girl's parents about what I found also."

Miss Harris didn't look very happy about it, but sighed and nodded.

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Dr. Lang?"

"If it's possible, could I go in and talk to her?" Dr. Lang asked, the look in her eyes pleading.

Dr. O'Neil must have seen the pleading in them. She nodded, "Of course, you may, but only for a minute, though I'm not certain what good it could do. I mean, she is in a deep coma and she can't hear you."

"Thank you." Dr. Lang nodded, then she stood up and exited the Doctor's lounge and made her way back to the room where Dr. O'Neil came from earlier. A nurse was just exiting the room, nodding to Dr. Lang and letting her in. She felt her heart drop to her stomach at the sight of Susanna Halloway lying there on the bed.

The girl was dressed in a blue hospital gown, the covers of her bed up to her chest, arms sticking out. Her right arm had an IV tube attached to the lower arm and held there by a bandage. The other hand on her left had the pulse clip on her finger attached to the heart monitor that beeped once every second or so. Another tube came from under the covers connected to a catheter bag. Her head was heavily bandaged and her eyes were closed, as if she were simply sleeping.

Dr. Lang walked over and stood beside the girl. For the first time, she could see the throat trauma that Dr. O'Neil spoke of clearly now that the girl's hair was cut off for the operation. The deep purple bruises and the red scratch marks that marred the young girl's skin. She put her left hand over the girl's right hand and closed her eyes.

Jennifer Lang stood there, eyes closed and on the verge of crying, and whispered to the girl, "Susanna, who did this to you?"

Unknown to her, standing in the open doorway, looking at her and the poor, unfortunate girl was Miss Walker. Her face was blank, but her eyes were narrowed slightly.

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_For anyone offended by the descriptions of abuse, I apologize. They were intense, and sadly, as I realized writing and researching this, Juvenile detention is not a fairytale world. I do my best to avoid graphic descriptions of "mature subject matter" in all of my stories, as well as language. If anyone has a problem with that, then I suggest M Rated stories, many of which I concede are not so bad. Still, I like keeping things T-Rated if possible._

_As of this posting, the story has reached a milestone! It is halfway done! That's right, halfway. Another thirty chapters and an epilogue to go before it is done. However, unlike the previous chapters, the others will be coming along much sooner, as the story is getting to scenes that have a bit more action. A lot of them will be scenes where Helga faces her worst challenges in her struggle for ultimate redemption, as well as Arnold's struggle to deal with his own worries and learn the truth . . .Oh yeah, and for all of you Arnold and Helga shippers out there, some good innocent fluff later on!_

_Next Chapter: Arnold Snaps! It will be a big one! Read and Review! -D.R._


	32. Part 31: Arnold Snaps!

**Part Thirty-One: Arnold Snaps!**

"So, your telling me you didn't see or hear anything else before the fire broke out? Nothing suspicious at all?" Arnold asked a couple of third graders named Tim and Vanessa as they stood there on the playground. Gerald stood there next to Arnold, looking down at the younger kids.

"Nope, both of us were out here on the playground," Tim said to him. "We were just sitting over by one of the fences talking when the fire broke out." Next to him Vanessa nodded and added, "We didn't see anyone suspicious at all."

Arnold sighed, "Thanks anyway."

"Well, it doesn't matter, I mean they caught the girl who did it, didn't they?" Tim said speaking up.

Arnold clenched his teeth and set his jaw, his eyes narrowed. "No they didn't." Both of the third graders looked a little nervous at the look he was giving them.

Gerald spoke up, "Come on, Arnold." He grabbed Arnold's arm and pulled him away from the younger kids. As they walked, Gerald looked over at his best friend nervously. "Arnold, take it easy, okay. I mean, they don't know Helga like we do. You can't blame them for that."

"I know Gerald, but it's just so – so frustrating trying to prove Helga's innocence, and then hear people call her a criminal." Arnold said, annoyed and upset.

It was now Friday afternoon, several days after Arnold helped to console Big Bob. Since that day, Arnold made it his business to question each and every person he could find to discover a witness who would prove that Helga could not possibly have been the arsonist. Gerald tagged along assisting Arnold. Unfortunately, so far, they'd found nobody who could give Helga an alibi, or place someone else near the scene of the crime who wasn't supposed to be there.

The other day, Arnold suggested searching for clues in Wartz's office. They attempted to get into the now ruined office, which had yellow police tape all over what was left of the burned door and blackened glass. Gerald tried to tell him on the way there that the police had been all over the room looking for evidence, and that the chances of them finding anything new were next to zilch. Arnold told him that the difference was that the police were looking for evidence of her guilt, while they were looking for proof of her innocence. Gerald didn't argue with him, knowing it would be useless to.

However, that idea came to nothing as well. The moment that they opened the door, they discovered Principal Wartz was in there, with several construction guys, repairing the burned out room. They had to make up an excuse for being around there so that Principal Wartz would not have a reason to give them detention for not being on the playground during recess.

Gerald sighed and looked over at him sadly, "Arnold, we may have to face some very unpleasant facts, man."

Arnold stopped in his tracks and spun around, looking at Gerald suspiciously. "What are you saying, Gerald? You starting to think that Helga did it too!" His eyes narrowed and he took a step toward his best friend, fists clenched.

Gerald was taken aback by Arnold's accusation, as well as getting slightly angry that Arnold was in his personal space now. "Hey man, I never said that! Your putting words in my mouth!" He too clenched his fists, and leaned closer to Arnold. He was starting to get sick and tired of Arnold recent bursts of frustrated anger. "What I was going to say is that we may have to deal with the fact that nobody else saw anything either, and that we might not find a witness."

Arnold looked at him a moment longer, still angry, then his face turned pained and he backed away, all of his anger abated, at least as the moment. "I'm sorry, Gerald." He whispered looking away, ashamed to face his friend.

"Arnold, man, I'm on your side," Gerald told him, not angry, but firmly. "Me and Phoebe both want to prove Helga's innocence too. I know your upset about everyone accepting that she's guilty, but you can't blame them. I mean it's not like Helga hasn't done enough over the years to make people think she might do something like this." He held up his hand when he saw Arnold look at him again sharply, and continued. "Helga _is_ a bully, Arnold. She's bossy and very easily annoyed. Look at it from their points of view, the evidence, the motive, the opportunity. It looks bad, and her record isn't exactly in her favor either. Remember everything at the hearing?"

"But she didn't do it, Gerald! I know she couldn't have!" Arnold defended, looking sad now.

"Hey man, you don't need to convince me, or Phoebe. We both believe Helga, and we're sticking by you, man. No matter what, were not going to leave you hanging."

Arnold looked at him and sighed. "I know, Gerald, and I'm sorry about biting your head off and getting on everyone's nerves. It's just that . . . " He trailed off, unable to say exactly what he's feeling.

Gerald looked over at his best friend, then smiled and said, "I know, Arnold. You're crushing on Helga." He smiled wider when his best friend suddenly turned red and looked away.

"What? Gerald that's . . . your way off base, man," Arnold said, still looking away, face red.

"Arnold, look at yourself," Gerald said, a knowing smile plastered on his face. "All your doing is thinking about her, worrying about her safety, getting on everyone's nerves talking about her. Not only that, but this didn't start happening after Helga got arrested either."

Arnold looked at him now, and there was no denying it, the boy was clearly embarrassed. "Gerald, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on, Arnold. Me and Phoebe both saw the way you two were looking at each other when we were all walking home that day she was arrested. Both of you were practically flirting with each other."

Arnold blinked and then countered, "Oh, and I suppose you were just holding Phoebe's hand to keep her from wondering out into traffic too?" He grinned a little seeing Gerald now trying to hide the slight darkening of his own cheeks.

"Hey man, don't change the subject, I know what I saw," Gerald said, looking back at him. "So, are you two an item, or what?"

"Gerald, I haven't even admitted that anything is going on-"

"Aha! So it _is _what I thought it was!"

"Now you're the one putting words in my mouth," Arnold said, then he looked away at the monkey bars, where Helga would hang upside down sometimes and play.

Gerald only stood there, a triumphant grin on his face. "Well, are you going to tell me, or do we have to play twenty questions?"

Arnold looked over at his best friend and sighed, "The truth is, I really don't know what was going on between us, Gerald."

"Huh?" Now Gerald simply looked confused. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

Both of them walked over to the bench next to the building, so that they could talk in private. Arnold sat down and leaned back against the building. Gerald joined him. The afternoon sunshine was warm and counted the cool air.

"Well, I guess it all started last summer, when we saved the neighborhood from Sheck, remember?"

"How could I forget," Gerald asked looking at him. "I still have dreams about jumping that overpass in that bus."

"Well, remember how Helga showed up and you asked what she was doing there?"

"Oh yeah, I did, didn't I?" He suddenly remembered. Then he asked, "What does any of that have to do with you and Helga though?"

"I'm getting to that," Arnold said, then continued. "Helga was helping us the whole time. She was Deep Voice."

Gerald sat up and looked at him, incredulously. "She was!"

Arnold nodded, "I found out when I saw her on the balcony of the FTI building. I confronted her about why she was helping us, and she told me . . ." He paused and took a deep breath, then leaned over so that nobody could possibly overhear them. "She told me that she was doing it all for me, because she loved me."

"SHE LOVES YOU!" Gerald shouted, standing up and looking at Arnold in shock. Everyone on the playground paused and looked over at his outburst. Gerald looked at all the curious faces and grinned sheepishly. They all turned away back to their conversations and free period activities.

Gerald sat back down, looking at Arnold's annoyed face and muttered, "Sorry man, it's just . . . well it's a shock. I mean, Helga G. Pataki, the same girl who bosses us all around, calls people names, slaps Harold around, and picks on you in particular . . ." he trailed off, almost as if he were suddenly finding a missing piece of a puzzle. "Oh, right. I see it now. She picked on you in particular, because she wanted your attention." He actually looked stupid for not figuring it out sooner, thinking that maybe it's true that boys can be really clueless about love. Or perhaps that girls can be_ so_ hard to figure out?"

"Imagine my shock when she told me," Arnold said, smiling a little. He decided not to tell Gerald about all the stuff she'd said to him in her moment of weakness, and about the kiss. If Gerald knew that Helga kissed him on the lips, Arnold knew he'd never hear the end of it.

"Anyway, what happened after that, Arnold?" Gerald asked, now clearly interested.

"Well, Gerald, after we'd shown everyone what Sheck was up to, when everything blew over, me and Helga sort-of, well um, we kind of agreed that everything happened in the heat of the moment." Arnold looked back toward the monkey bars.

"Oh, I see," Gerald said, disappointed he wasn't about to hear a juicier story.

"But things _were_ getting better between us," Arnold added. "I mean, sure she still played pranks on me and stuff, but now that I understand the reasons why, I can sort-of deal with it better, and Helga wasn't doing it nearly as often as she used to, or so I think at any rate."

Gerald grinned, "Or maybe, you were starting to see her in a different light, huh Romeo?" He elbowed Arnold in the arm.

"Hey cut that out," Arnold said, rubbing his arm and smiling slightly. "I mean, I wasn't so sure how I felt, that was until Helga was arrested and I started missing her." He sighed and looked very thoughtfully down at his shoes. "I mean, I always thought Helga was okay, despite everything she's done, all the pranks and names and stuff. Sometimes, she would do things that seemed so different from the bully she let everyone else see, and when she did . . . well, I guess I always felt sort-of proud of her then. In a way, maybe something's been there a long time and I'm only now realizing that maybe I felt the same way a little."

He looked over at Gerald, who was smiling again, but this time not in a teasing sort-of way. Then Arnold blinked again and sighed, "But she's gone now. Locked away in some juvenile prison with a bunch of convicts. Who knows what may be happening to her in there. And I promised her, Gerald. I swore to her that I would get her out of all this somehow."

Gerald really looked at Arnold with a great deal of sympathy. It was just like his best friend to try and put all of the wrongs in the world and right them, and to take all of the blame if things didn't work out.

This whole issue with Helga though still had him stumped. She was nothing like Arnold, or at least not while anyone else noticed anyhow. Yet, despite being a bully, her and Phoebe were best friends, the same way him and Arnold were. If Phoebe thought that Helga was good enough to be a best friend, and if Helga did indeed love his best friend (though he was still having a time accepting that) then he could give her the benefit of the doubt too.

Gerald put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Arnold, listen man. I know that your starting to care about Helga, and that you promised to help, but you may have to accept the fact that this time there may be nothing you can do, except wait for her trial to take place next month."

Arnold stood up and took a couple of steps away, then looked out over the playground thinking about Gerald's words._ 'Maybe he's right?'_ Arnold thought as he looked over at the crowd of kids already gathering at the fence, getting ready to leave for the day. The city bus was almost ready arriving to take some of them home. _'Maybe there's nothing I can do that will help her . . . but I promised her I would do something!'_

"Gerald," Arnold began, then turned around to look at his best friend, who was still sitting and looking right at him seriously. "I really have to try to do what I can, not just to get Helga out of juvenile hall, but for my own peace of mind too. If I just sit around, I am going to go crazy missing her. I hope you can understand that."

Gerald nodded after a moment, then said, "I do understand, Arnold. If I were in your shoes, man, I don't think that I would be able to deal with it if Phoebe was the one in there instead." He stood then, walked over to Arnold and offered his fist. "I'm in, Arnold. No matter what, I won't abandon you till you either prove Helga is innocent, or she is released. Were in this together, buddy." He smiled at him.

Arnold smiled back gratefully and put his own fist against Gerald. Then they did their friendship handshake, where they wiggled their thumbs. "Thanks, Gerald, you're a pal."

"Hey, don't think any-" Gerald was cut off by a high pitched yell from the front of the building.

"What was that?" Arnold asked, blinking and looking around.

"Hey! Don't those are my books!" Someone shouted out. It was a girl's voice.

"That's Phoebe!" Gerald exclaimed and took off out through the gate in the fence and around the side of the building to the front, with Arnold trailing closely behind.

"Hey, let go of me!" Phoebe's voice again called out loudly. She sounded like she was in distress. As both boys turned the corner, they immediately saw the reason why.

Standing over Phoebe, on top of the stairs leading up to the front doors of the school were Cookie and Simone. Cookie had hold of Phoebe by the hair while Simone smirked and pointed at her. Phoebe's books were lying all over the sidewalk, her book bag was split open at the bottom of the stairs. A lot of kids were standing around at the bottom of the stairs watching the confrontation and doing nothing to get involved. Across the street, as if daring anyone to come over and mess with them, were Billy Nash and his gang. All of them were near their bikes watching on, obviously waiting for Cookie and Simone to finish up their business.

Cookie shoved Phoebe against the door. The smaller girl winced when she hit and fell, glasses askew, on the top of the stairs.

"Hey!" Gerald shouted out, drawing the attention of the Simone, who frowned at their interference. The shout also drew the notice of Billy Nash, who frowned and climbed off of his bike, keeping his eyes on the two younger boys. Now everyone out there was watching the confrontation with interest.

Arnold ran over and stood between Phoebe and the two older girls, just as Helga had a little over a week before. Gerald, meanwhile ran over to Phoebe and helped her up. Phoebe winced, having scraped her knee on the cement. It was now beginning to bleed a little.

"What do you two think your doing to her?" Arnold said, looking up angry at the two sixth grade girls.

Both of them smirked and Simone said, "None of your business, _football-face_!"

"Yeah," Cookie said, blowing her gum, which was grape flavored today, and smacking it between her large teeth.

"Leave our friend alone," Arnold said, standing up to them, fists clenched at his sides. Behind him, Gerald moved over and stood just to the right of him, holding Phoebe up and sending both the older girls a glare of his own.

"Or what, you little shit." Muttered Simone, who was not intimidated in the least. She leaned over and smirked at Arnold, as if daring her to lay a hand on her.

Arnold blinked and seemed to lose a bit of his steam. Nearly all of his life, Arnold was raised to believe that a real man did not hit a girl. This ideal, along with his own personal set of values, which he'd kept for the most part since he was very young, made him unclinch his fists a little.

Simone only smirked more, knowing that Arnold didn't have it in him. Besides, she knew he would never dare do anything in front of her boyfriend and his gang, who were close by if she needed backup. Beside her, Cookie grinned more, clearing enjoying having the upper hand.

"I thought so, shrimp," Simone said, shoving Arnold back roughly. "You ain't so tough now are you? Not without your ugly little bitch girlfriend to back you up." She and Cookie both laughed.

Arnold felt a stab of pain in his chest, his anger rising again at Simone's words. "Don't you dare call Helga that again!"

"What? Your girlfriend?" Simone said, enjoying taunting the boy, knowing there wasn't anything he could do to her. "Yeah, I suppose your right. Pataki was a little too ugly to have a boyfriend." Cookie laughed at her friend's words.

Arnold's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched again. He was visibly shaking now. Gerald noticed this and then said to the older girls, "Why don't you two just do us all a favor and go away! Leave us all alone?"

"Yo, babe?" Billy Nash called out to Simone. "Those punks giving you trouble?" He looked very smug and amused, almost like a male version of Simone.

Simone turned her head and said, "It's okay, Billy. I can handle them." She looked back at Arnold and leaned closer, smirking terribly. "So, you think that bitch is having fun down in Cherry Hell? Maybe acting like a big shot bitch, and talking trash now? Think she's calling any of the sisters down there, 'geekbait'?" She turned to Cookie and asked, "Whatcha think?"

"More than likely, Pataki's the one who's the geekbait now, huh Simone?" Cookie said, now adding her own taunts and sneering over at Arnold.

"More like 'jailbait', you mean?" Simone said, her eyes flashing with sadistic pleasure and smirking darkly. Both of the sixth grade girls laughed hard then.

At that last comment from Simone, something inside Arnold, a part of himself that he held in check ever since Helga's arrest and sentencing; which only broke out once for a brief time when Arnold cried returning Helga's books to her house, finally broke free. He began to shake in rage, his face turned an angry red and tears threatened to fall from his green eyes. If he'd been looking at himself from the outside just then, he never would have recognized himself.

He wasn't even aware of it as he walked forward suddenly toward Simone, who didn't even notice from her hysterical laughing. With a growl of pent up rage and grief, Arnold shoved her hard. Simone's laughter suddenly turned into a shout of alarm as she fell over the guard rail and off the top of the stairs, head first, right into an overflowing garbage can and several garbage bags full of leaves piled around it below. Garbage and leaves flew everywhere from her impact, and the can she fell into fell over on its side.

Everyone who'd been standing around, looked at Arnold with absolute shock. Gerald, Phoebe, and even Cookie all had their mouth's hanging wide open, eyes wide.

Arnold blinked and suddenly all of his anger disappeared as he realized he'd just hit a girl. He looked over the guard rail and down at Simone. Her hair was messed up and covered in something sticky, her left sandal had fallen off, and she was dripping with something that looked like sour milk on her dress. She suddenly began to scream and jump around, swatting at herself, because she realized suddenly that she was also covered, from head to toe, with daddy longlegs, which had all been crawling over the garbage bags.

A couple of people cheered what Arnold had done, among them were Cookie and Simone's former friends Connie and Mariea, who clapped and catcalled. Wolfgang and his friends pumped their fists into the air and cheered also. Everyone else, however, was looking at Arnold in a state of disbelief and total shock. Rhonda, Lila and Nadine (Who'd been admiring the daddy longlegs she'd caught before) were all looking at Arnold with their mouth's wide open. Stinky, Sid, Harold and Eugene were wide-eyed. Even Curly looked stunned.

"GET THEM OFF ME! GET THEM OFF ME! AHHH!" Simone screamed loudly, doing her wild dance of the daddy longlegs. Cookie ran down to try and get them off of her friend, though she didn't look very happy about touching Simone, who was covered in garbage and smelled like sour milk and bad bananas.

"HEY YOU LITTLE TWERP!"

Arnold blinked and turned his head, still slightly disoriented by his actions. He was suddenly alert when he saw who it was.

Billy Nash was stalking toward him, looking extremely angry, fists clenching open and closed, eager to get his hands on the guy who'd just shoved his girlfriend. Several of his gang were following suit close behind, all of them angry.

"Your dead, you little punk!" The thug said, removing his sunglasses. His dark eyes were full of a desire to twist Arnold into a pretzel . . . or worse.

"ARNOLD!"

Everyone turned and Billy Nash paused in mid-step looking up in the doorway of the school.

Mr. Simmons was standing there inside the doorway, looking mad and a bit disappointed at Arnold. Apparently he'd seen what happened, along with everyone else from just inside the school building. "Arnold, I cannot believe what I have just witnessed. I am very disappointed in you. As much as I hate to do this, I am afraid that I am going to have to talk to Principal Wartz about this. Striking another student is a violation of school policy and I never expected to have to talk to you about it."

Arnold was still in a state of shock over what he'd done and was more worried about the presence of Billy Nash. When he looked back, he noticed that Billy Nash moved away from him to help the trash covered Simone, who was angry and glaring back up at Arnold.

Billy Nash looked back up at him and said, in a clearly deadly voice, eyes blazing, "You and I will dance later, you little sack of shit!" Then he and his gang, along with Cookie and the be-trashed Simone went back to their bikes.

"Come on, Arnold, let's go," Mr. Simmons said to him, gesturing back inside the building regretfully.

"Mr. Simmons, wait," Gerald said, turning to the teacher. "It wasn't Arnold fault. Simone was taunting him, and talking bad about Helga. Also, her and that other girl were picking on Phoebe. They shoved her down."

"It's true, Mr. Simmons," Phoebe said, trying not to wince in pain from her wounded and bleeding knee. "Cookie and Simone were going to beat me up. They've been picking on me for a while now, ever since Helga was arrested. If it hadn't been for Gerald and Arnold, they might have hurt me worse." She looked down a little embarrassed. Gerald looked over at her a moment, looking anxious over this revelation about the bullying.

Mr. Simmons looked down at Phoebe's knee and looked a bit queasy at the sight of the blood. Then he sighed and said, "Be that as it may, Phoebe, I am afraid that striking another student cannot be tolerated. I'm sorry. Now Gerald, go take Phoebe to Nurse Shelly before she leaves, and when you are both done, please come to Principal Wartz office as well." He turned to look at Arnold then, "Arnold, you come with me."

Arnold blinked and nodded, looking very worried. He glanced at Gerald and Phoebe, both of whom gave him a sympathetic look. They were the only ones though.

Looking around, Arnold saw that everyone else was muttering or whispering about what Arnold had done. The guys were looking at Arnold like he'd suddenly grown another head. The girls were all muttering darkly, no doubt about what kind of boy Arnold was becoming for shoving a girl, even one like Simone. Rhonda especially looked at him in a different, less positive light. The younger kids were looking at Arnold a bit afraid now, and the older ones seemed to give Arnold some angry looks. It was clear that with one single solitary act, Arnold just went down on the popularity chain.

Lowering his head, unable to look at any of them, and still uncertain of his own thoughts about the ordeal replaying itself in his head, Arnold followed Mr. Simmons inside to the Principal's office. Gerald put his arm around Phoebe, both of them watching him go worried.

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_Oh man, bet you don't know if you should be worried for Arnold now, or cheering your heads off over what he did? Personally, I am inclined to do both. I giggled writing that one little scene, LOL!_

_Two characters in this chapter are dedicated to two of my favorite reviewers and chat friends, Vanessa and Tim (a.k.a. King RTS)._

_Next chapter, Arnold talks to Dr. Bliss about his feeling and Helga faces more hell in Cherry Hell. Stay tuned! -D.R._


	33. Part 32: Arnold And Dr Bliss

**Part Thirty-Two: Arnold and Dr. Bliss**

Arnold sat on a chair in the newly refurnished and restored principal's office, right in front of Wartz's desk. He could still smell the scent of fresh paint filling his nostrils as he sat there. He had an empty feeling in his stomach as he waited anxiously for the axe to fall. This was the calm before what Arnold was sure would be a terrible storm.

He knew exactly what his fate would be. First, he would be chewed out for his "heinous act of juvenile delinquency." Then he would receive three days of suspension from school, and his grandparents would be notified about what he'd done. Arnold could see his grandpa's disappointment already in his mind's eye. He could see the looks on the faces of the other boarders now. He knew they would look at him the same way his classmates and friends had back in front of the school.

Right now, Arnold knew that the hard part would be the waiting till Principal Wartz was done interrogating Gerald and Phoebe. He wondered also if Phoebe was alright, her scrape had been pretty nasty looking.

Arnold looked down at his hands, the same ones that he'd used to shove Simone over the side of the stoop. Then he closed his eyes, leaned over and put his hands over his face. He felt really sick about what he'd done now. He'd never attacked anyone in his life like that, especially a girl.

His mind abruptly replayed the whole scene in his head. He could still feel his desire to help Phoebe from Cookie and Simone. Then he could hear the mocking taunts of the two bullies as they made fun of Helga, who was not there to defend herself. Then he remembered the rush of anger and grief that drove him to shove Simone.

'_So what?'_ A voice spoke up inside his mind._ 'She was the one who started all of it! She was making fun of Helga and picked on Phoebe! All you did was stop her! I mean, come on, she wasn't hurt or anything, was she?'_

'_No, she wasn't hurt,'_ Arnold thought, answering the rebellious thoughts. _'But she could have been, and it would have been my fault!'_

Arnold knew that no matter how bad what Simone did, it was no excuse for his behavior. All of his classmates would be right to hate him now. He'd shoved a girl, even if it was an older one, and could have seriously hurt her.

The door to the office opened up. Arnold didn't sit up, or even uncover his eyes yet. He sighed, waiting to hear Wartz start lecturing him about school policies in his authoritative voice.

"Hello, Arnold," a calm, gentle female voice said near the doorway. Arnold blinked, lifted his head and looked over. It was Doctor Bliss. She was closing the door behind her and looking at Arnold with a very impartial demeanor.

"Oh, um, hi, Doctor Bliss," Arnold said quietly and then looked away at the far wall, unable to look her in the eye, worried that he would start to see the disappointment in them for his actions.

Dr. Bliss walked over toward the chair he sat in and sat against the edge of the desk, her hands beside her gripping the edge as she looked down at him. "Principal Wartz and I just finished talking to Gerald and Phoebe."

Arnold still didn't meet her eyes when he asked, "How's Phoebe doing?"

"She's okay, just a scratch. It was worse than it looked," Dr. Bliss told him. Then she said, "It was a very good thing that you and Gerald were there for her."

He only nodded, then said, "I suppose that they told you what I did, then?"

Dr. Bliss looked down at him and nodded, "Yes Arnold, they did." She didn't sound angry, or disappointed. Arnold looked up at her, realizing this and saw that same neutral expression on her face. "Would you care to tell me about it?" She asked him, inclining her head a little waiting for an answer.

Arnold sighed and told her everything from the moment they heard Phoebe call out in distress, to the moment that Mr. Simmons brought Arnold to the office. He looked away slightly toward the window as he spoke. The clouds outside were getting darker and the sun getting later in the day. Autumn was fully here now and night would be arriving sooner and sooner.

When he finished his story, he looked at Dr. Bliss. Her demeanor hadn't changed at all, and her head was tilted to the right a little, as if studying him. Then she asked, "And how do you feel about everything that happened, Arnold?"

He closed his eyes a moment, then said, "Not very good. Not because I will probably be suspended, or the fact that my friends will probably start avoiding me."

"Then why don't you feel very good, Arnold?" She asked him.

Arnold opened his eyes and looked at the floor a moment before answering. "Because I know what I did was wrong, and that there's no excuse for it. I could have hurt someone badly. If those garbage bags hadn't been there, Simone might have broken her arm or leg." Then he looked at her. "But at the same time, a part of me is not sorry I did it either. I mean, I know what I did was wrong and I feel very guilty for it, but at the same time I think about all the cruel things she said about Helga and . . ." He trailed off and sighed.

Dr. Bliss looked at his reaction, then she smiled a little. Her eyes twinkled and she said, "Arnold, your reaction is exactly what I would expect from you."

Arnold looked at her, "Huh? It is?"

The child psychiatrist only nodded and continued, "You're a very caring boy, Arnold. You've demonstrated that when you stood up for Phoebe, and for Helga too, even though she isn't here to defend herself. I'm not saying for a moment that how you did it was right, or even wrong, how you feel about that is up to you. What I am saying is that you tried to help someone who was in trouble."

"Yeah, and look where that is going to get me," Arnold said, slightly bitter. "I'm probably going to be suspended, just because I let my anger get the better of me." He looked at the floor again, examining his shoes. "Everything has been so different since Helga was locked up."

"Oh?" Dr. Bliss looked at him closely, waiting patiently for him to continue. "In what way, Arnold?"

"I was talking to Gerald before the – the incident. It was about Helga. I'd promised her somehow when she was arrested that day that I would prove that she didn't set the principals office on fire, but no matter what I have tried, I can't find anything, or anyone that can prove she didn't."

"Well, Arnold, maybe you can't," Dr. Bliss said, looking down at him. She sighed, "The police have gone through all of the evidence and conducted their own investigation. I'm not very sure your going to find out anything more than they can. Still, it is very noble of you to try to do all of those things for Helga." She smiled slightly thinking that Helga would probably be floating on air if she knew what Arnold was doing for her.

Arnold looked up at her. "I meant what I said, Dr. Bliss. I want to find out what happened and who did it. Helga doesn't deserve to be locked up. I know that she acts all tough and strong on the outside, and she is; but deep down, she's much more than that. Plus she's still just a kid like me. I couldn't imagine what she's going though right now, locked up with criminals. She's probably scared and lonely, thinking about how everyone else thinks she's guilty, but I know she would never have done that, no matter how bad she might seem on the outside." He closed his eyes a moment and sighed.

"It sounds like you see a lot more in Helga than most people do," Dr. Bliss said, making an observation.

He nodded and opened his eyes again, "I have been thinking a lot about her lately. Mostly about how much I miss her." He laughed humorlessly. "Isn't that silly, to care so much about someone who picked on and bullied you most of your life?"

Dr. Bliss smiled a little more, eyes twinkling once again as she looked at the football-headed boy. "No, not at all. In fact, I would imagine that Helga would appreciate hearing those things if she could. I know Helga well enough to know that your opinion of her matters a lot." Those carefully spoken words were the closest that Dr. Bliss would come to breaking her professional oath to Helga about what they'd discussed the first time Helga came to see her.

Arnold looked at Dr. Bliss and said, "It does?" He wondered if Helga told her about how she felt about him. The idea that someone else, other than Gerald and maybe Phoebe knowing about his feelings was a bit disconcerting at the moment. She nodded to him smiling. There was something in that smile that told Arnold that she did know, somehow he could just feel it.

Carefully, he said, "Helga told me something once, that I still find hard to believe."

Dr. Bliss looked at him, observing the way that he was regarding her now and asked curiously, "What was that, Arnold?" A part of her suspected what me was about to tell her, but she kept her face as neutral as possible, just in case. Her mind however was hopeful.

"She told me that she . . . well, that she_ loved_ me," Arnold said a little quickly, and a faint blush came to his cheeks.

"Really?" Dr. Bliss said, and she didn't bother hiding the smile that came to her face. _'Way to go, Helga,'_ She thought to herself.

Arnold looked at her and said, "You knew. Helga told you once before, didn't she?" He asked curiously.

Dr. Bliss shrugged and said, "I'm sorry, Arnold. I can't tell you what me and Helga discussed. Doctor-patient confidentiality."

The boy's half-lidded green eyes regarded her thoughtfully and a small smile came to his oblong face, "What ever you say, Dr. Bliss. I understand." None the less, in that moment, both of them shared a total understanding of the other, and their new found revelations.

Arnold then pulled the locket out of his pants pocket and looked down at it. "This was Helga's. I found it when they arrested her. It got lost in the confusion of things." He handed the locket with his picture in it to Dr. Bliss. She took it and looked down at it smiling. "There's an inscription inside, too." Arnold explained, blushing a little more.

Curious, Dr. Bliss opened the small catch and read the inscription on the inside of Helga's locket. "Arnold, my soul, you are always in my heart. Love, Helga G. Pataki." She smiled and said, "And your keeping it?"

Arnold smiled, "I know I should give it to her parents, but I thought I would hold onto it, till she is released." He looked at her and asked, "Is that wrong of me? I mean, I just wanted to keep something of hers." Arnold blushed a little.

"Not at all, Arnold," she said, grinning slightly at Arnold, who's cheeks looked a bit red. Dr. Bliss handed the locket back to him. "In fact, I think it's quite a lovely gesture to keep something of Helga's safe for her." _'Not to mention very telling of your feelings,'_ She thought to herself.

He replaced the locket back inside his front left jean pocket and then leaned back in the chair and said, "I miss her _so_ much, Dr. Bliss. I wish that I could see her somehow. Just to let her know that I still believe her, and that I'm still trying to prove her innocence. I sent her a letter, but I still want to say it to her personally."

Dr. Bliss thought for a moment and then smiled, an idea forming inside her mind. "You know, Arnold, I think that maybe I can arrange that."

Arnold looked up at her quickly and blinked, "Huh? You can?"

The child psychiatrist nodded and explained. "I have to go to Cherry Hill tomorrow afternoon to talk to the resident psychologist there. She's an old friend of mine. While there, I planned on visiting Helga as well. I don't see any reason why I can't include you in my trip. That is, if you want to go?"

Arnold sat up abruptly and said quickly, eyes wide and smiling, "Yes, I would like that a lot." Then he thought a moment and added, "Can Phoebe and Gerald come too? I mean Phoebe is her best friend and Gerald, well he believes her also."

Dr. Bliss smiled and said, "If they want to go, then I have no objection."

He stood up and hugged Dr. Bliss around the waist. "Thank you, Dr. Bliss. This means a lot to me."

She hugged him back and said, "I know it does. I'm only too happy to help out." Dr. Bliss patted his back. "And I know that Helga will be happy to see you too." Arnold smiled at her and nodded.

Just then, the door opened and in came a sour-looking Principal Wartz, followed by an anxious Mr. Simmons. He looked over at Arnold sternly and then said, "I'll take it from here, Dr. Bliss."

"Of course, I'm all done with Arnold, for now," Dr. Bliss said, turning to go. She looked back at Arnold and winked, "We will talk again soon." Then she smiled a little as she turned and left.

Arnold felt so happy now, knowing that whatever lectures and punishment for his infractions he faced now, he would be able to face it. Now the axe that fell did not seem nearly so sharp at all.

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_Humm, I wonder if anyone else saw in this scene some shades of "Arnold's Couch Confessions" my first fanfic? I have to admit, I got a small sense of nostalgia there as I typed the conversation with Arnold and Dr. Bliss. For anyone unfamiliar with that wonderful story, be sure to check it our and review._

_Next up, Arnold and the others visit Helga in Cherry Hell and Dr. Bliss and Dr. Lang talk. Major drama coming up! You don't want to miss it! It's gonna be great! Stay tuned! Read and Review! -D.R._


	34. Part 33: Helga Strikes Back

**Part Thirty-Three: Helga Strikes Back!**

Helga let out a small squeal of alarm and sat up in her bunk, eyes wide and gasping for breath. She was very shaken from the nightmare that she just had. It was dark in the small dorm room, only a few small spots of light shown inside it. For a moment, Helga almost forgot where she was, till her mind slowly came out of the haze of dreamland and back to the real world. When she remembered, she covered her eyes with her right arm and flopped her head back down onto her pillow with a groan. She was covered in sweat, and her tank top and underwear clung to her.

She'd dreamt that she was being chased by Bowers, Pena and their gang down the same sort-of tunnel that the solitary cells were located in, till she reached a dead end and was grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground, where about a dozen cat-sized gray rats with glowing red eyes were waiting to bite her.

Helga moved her arm away from her face and looked up at the picture of Arnold on the springs above her. The image of his smiling face gazed down at her, almost as if it were looking right at her. That alone was enough to calm Helga and make her feel better, if only for a little bit.

She didn't know how long she was awake after that, probably about thirty minutes, or so, but Helga couldn't get back to sleep, no matter how hard she tried. A part of her was worried about having another nightmare. It was the third one this week, ever since the rat trap incident in the laundry room.

Soon, the lights came on and the loud ringing of the morning bell woke all of the inmates of Dorm C from their restful, and not so restful slumbers. After this came the usual routine. The guard in charge today (in this case it wasn't Miss Walker) announced that they had five minutes before the first count to get dressed in their sweats. After they lined up to be counted by Bowers and Pena, they were led by the same inmates down to the fences for a morning run around the track. Then after that, the inmates were taken to the Mess Hall where they were treated to a breakfast of runny scrambled eggs, greasy bacon, an apple, hominy grits, and a half-burnt toast, with their choice of white, or chocolate milk.

Once breakfast was done, the inmates were returned to the dorm to be recounted, to change clothes, and then given their work assignments. Once again, Helga drew the now infamous "shithouse patrol" detail, with Trashmouth helping her.

Helga was scrubbing the toilets, only one of which down at the end was being used at the moment, and Trashmouth (who was busy cleaning out the nearby shower area) went on and on about how glad she was that they were not in the laundry room today. Unfortunately for them, Miranda and PG got that particular assignment again.

Helga scrubbed using a long-handled toilet scrubber with her left hand because of the splint on her right pinkie finger, which still throbbed whenever it was bumped. She hated this assignment, but it did beat cleaning dirty clothes in that sweatshop downstairs.

They were both nearly done with their assignments when Bower's harsh voice called out from the doorway, "Hello, blondie." Helga shivered slightly as she paused scrubbing one of the toilets. She turned her head back to see Bowers, with Pena and two of their goons standing at the doorway, smirks set on their faces and wicked gleams in their eyes. She could feel a knot of anxiety forming in her stomach. At the shower area, Trashmouth looked up, holding the plunger she had in her hands firmly, like a club.

Bowers, Pena and one of the bullies entered, while the fourth stood lookout at the doorway for the guard on duty.

"What do_ you_ want, Bowers?" Helga said, trying to sound as intimidating as she could, but it came out sounding more like a worried squeak. The memory of her finger breaking was one she would not get over anytime soon.

"We came to see how you'se were doing," Pena said, moving into position between Helga and Trashmouth. The other bully was trying to get behind her, while Bowers stood in front of her.

Helga suddenly realized that she had no room to move in the small wooden stall and tried to run for it. She got no further than a few steps out of it before Pena and the other girl grabbed her. Helga stomped on the foot of the other bully, who howled out in pain, but still held onto her. Helga twisted and tried to hit Pena, but before she could, Bowers was on her and punched her really hard in the stomach, knocking all of Helga's air out of her lungs. She gasped and coughed as Pena and the other bully grabbed her arms. She felt ready to throw up from the pain in her gut.

"Aww, you ain't so tough now, are you, bitch?" Bowers said to her, face inches from Helga's. Her breath smelled terrible, almost like raw sewage.

The inmate, who'd been using the bathroom up till then, stood up and was about to flush when Bowers looked over and pointed at her. "Leave it and get the hell outta here!" The girl didn't nod, or reply in any way, but simply did as she was told and left quickly. Bowers then turned to Trashmouth and said, "You want some of this too, O'Feir?"

"Are you offering this time, sweet cheeks?" Trashmouth said, smirking and puckering her lips in Bower's direction.

Bowers glared fed-faced and turned back to the girl at the entrance. "Cook, take her!" The girl left her post and went for Trashmouth, who suddenly lunged at her with the toilet plunger and hit her in the face. The girl let out a surprised yell and clutched at the slimy filth on her face. During this distraction, Trashmouth moved around her and tried to go for the door, but Bowers ran at her with surprising speed for someone so large and rammed her into the wall just short of her goal. She collapsed against the wall, then slid down to the tiled floor. She then kicked Trashmouth repeatedly, along with the other, now dirty-faced inmate, who was angry at Trashmouth's little sneak attack from before.

"Hey, leave her alone you stupid _bitch_!" Helga shouted out as she started to slowly regain her breath. A split second too late, she realized that she'd just said a _very_ dumb thing.

Bowers turned back to face her and her friend stopped kicking Trashmouth, who now had a cut on her left cheek and a bleeding lower lip. She lay there gasping for air as Helga had before, looking up at Helga sympathetically.

Bowers walked back over to Helga and grabbed a fistful of her hair, which was only now beginning to grow back slightly. She yanked Helga's head up, jerking her by the hair and hurting her neck."What did you call me, you little tramp?" She hissed in Helga's face, spittle hitting her cheek. Helga herself was struggling not to scream out because of her hair being pulled. She bit the inside of her mouth as tears of pain came to her closed eyes.

The large bully let go of her hair and then said, "You know, I was going to let you go with a small ass kicking and a swirly, but for that, your going to have to do something else." There was a nasty sneer on Bower's face just then and her dull, pig-like eyes flashed with wicked amusement. "Hold her," she ordered Pena and the other girl. The other bully, Cook, stood over Trashmouth to keep her from interfering.

Bowers walked over to the toilet that hadn't been flushed and then she pulled something out of the inside of her prison shirt. It was one of the milk cartons from the mess hall. The carton's top had been cut off to make it more like a cup. She then dipped it inside the toilet and scooped out some of it's yellowish contents. The bully turned back to Helga with that same nasty sneer on her face.

"I'll make you a deal, blondie. You drink this down, and we'll let you and your little pal go for today." She laughed and so did her friends.

Helga felt herself getting sick at the thought of what the bully wanted her to do. Bowers came over to her slowly, holding the homemade cup and it's disgusting contents. The smirk on her face and the evil gleam in the bully's eyes, and the laughter of her goons was enough to make the small reserve of inner strength and anger Helga still had to kick in.

Acting totally in instinct, Helga lifted her legs up while the other two bullies still held her and kicked out with all of her strength, catching both of her feet in Bower's upper chest. The larger bully, who thought Helga was still completely out of breath, was caught totally unaware and gasped in mid laugh as the momentum of the kick knocked her backwards against one of the wooden petitions between the toilets and onto her ample behind. To add insult to injury, the carton and its contents flew out of her hand into the air and landed, upturned, on top of Bower's head, the carton bounced off and landed just beside her on its side on the floor.

Trashmouth laughed at the bully from her place on the floor loudly, then said to Helga, "Oh wow, Pataki, looks like you pissed her off good this time."

Helga herself barely had time to fully appreciate what she'd done, indeed even the bullies who held her arms were looking at Bowers in shock, when the bully stood up with an angry growl, eyes rolling with fury and dripping with urine. She stank badly and her face was turning a terrible shade of red.

"I'm going to cut off your ears, you little _skank_!" Bowers shouted, reaching into her pants pocket for something. Helga never found out what the large bully was going for, because at that moment, Miss Foster appeared at the doorway, suddenly looking angry.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Foster asked sternly, the very voice of authority. Pena and the other bully let go of Helga's arms and Bowers took a step back, hand away from her pocket. She looked at Foster worried, as did her associates.

Trashmouth was the first to speak up, "Well, it's like this, Miss Foster. Bowers here was just showing us all her own unique way of cleaning up after a fun filled day of being barn boss." She grinned, showing off the wound on her cheek and a missing tooth. Then she added, spitting out a gob of blood and spit, "Of course, I prefer water to piss any day of the week."

Miss Foster frowned down at Trashmouth, then said, "Report of the infirmary, O'Feir." Then she looked over at Helga and the bullies. She said, "Bowers, you and your friends just earned yourselves another trip to the hole." Apparently Miss Foster didn't turn a blind eye to bullying like Walker did.

All of the bullies grumbled under their breath, but obeyed. As she passed Helga, Bowers elbowed her hard in the shoulder, making the younger girl wince a little. She looked back at Helga and it was clear that today's incident would not be forgotten.

The moment the room was cleared, Miss Foster looked down at Helga and asked, "You okay, Pataki?" Helga just nodded, though her shoulder and stomach throbbed where they were hit by the older bullies.

Miss Foster only nodded and then said, "Okay then, come with me. You have some visitors."

Helga blinked and looked up, "Visitors?" She suddenly looked more alert. "Someone came to see me?"

Miss Foster nodded and gestured for her to follow. "Come on, this way."

As Helga followed Miss Foster out of Dorm C and down some corridors, her mind was running a mile a minute over the idea of anyone coming to visit her and who. Her parents? Maybe, but she wasn't so sure of that. As much as she never thought she would admit it, she missed Bob and Miriam, despite her somewhat neglectful situation at home.

Miss Foster led Helga to a door marked "Visitors" and then came the familiar buzz from an electric lock being unlocked from inside. Foster opened the door and ushered Helga inside.

The room was a long, rectangular room with a guard at a wooden desk to the right and on the left, all along the wall were open cubicles with a single chair and a small shelf table attached to the wall. This was connected to the wall where some thick glass with more wire screening. A phone receiver was connected to the right of the cubicle beside the window. The numbers one to fifteen were stenciled in black over the windows along the top of the gray-painted wall. Several inmates were already sitting there, talking into the phone receiver to friends and family behind the glass.

"Sign here," the guard said to Helga, tapping onto a clipboard on the desk. Helga did so, signing her name and prison number below a dozen others. Her neat handwriting stood out among the other untidy scribbles. "Go to number ten, your visitors are there. You have twenty minutes."

Helga nodded and walked over to number ten and looked out into the faces beyond. Her heart leaped with joy inside her chest.

Dr. Bliss was there, along with Phoebe, Gerald . . . and Arnold!

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_Sorry it took so long, writer's block is a pain. Next chapter, Arnold's POV. Please read and review, give me your honest opinions. More coming soon! -D.R_


	35. Part 34: Arnold Visits Helga

**Part Thirty-Four: Arnold Visits Helga **

The next morning, around 11 A.M., Arnold found himself sitting in the passenger's seat of Dr. Bliss's car, looking out the window at the passing scenery as Dr. Bliss drove over the bridge across the river and onto the peninsula.

He smiled a little, despite the gray, overcast sky and cold autumn wind outside. Dr. Bliss had the radio tuned into M-JAZZ, which at the moment had the host, Nocturnal Ned talking about the weather forecasts: _"Rain this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, a chance for rain mixed with sleet and ice . . ." _Arnold was only half listening to the radio. He was way too excited and anxious to care about the weather report.

For Arnold, this Saturday morning could not have arrived any sooner.

Last night, Arnold had a dream about him and Helga. In it, they were both dancing together at a fancy ball, with beautiful music playing in the background. Helga had been wearing a lovely pink and white strapless gown that went all the way to the floor, her golden blonde hair had been tied up on top of her head with a diamond necklace sparking around her thin, perfect neck. He could still remember his dream version of her smiling with that wide smile of hers, pink lipstick sparkling on her moist lips, making her seem even more appealing that he'd thought of her before in that way.

The dream had been so vivid that Arnold thought he could still feel Helga moving along with him, could still feel his left arm around her waist and his right hand holding hers. He even imagined that he could still smell the scent of her hair. It had been such a good dream that Arnold was disoriented and then dismayed when his alarm clock woke him up. Then he was so frustrated that he not only removed the wire from the potato that powered his clock, but actually tossed the potato across the room toward his desk before he let out a frustrated groan.

Of course, the moment he remembered what day it was, he suddenly found the will to get up out of bed, call Gerald and Phoebe and get ready for his trip to see Helga. When both Gerald and Phoebe arrived thirty minutes later (both of them holding hands and smiling at one another) Arnold was already waiting outside for Dr. Bliss to arrive. She did not arrive till about another half hour, during which time Arnold paced around back and forth in front of the stoop like a caged lion in a zoo. Gerald and Phoebe watched him as they sat patiently, still holding hands.

Now Arnold was sitting in Dr. Bliss's car, watching all of the busy factories and woodlands passed by, thinking about that wonderful dream, and about seeing Helga again after more than a week of missing her way more than he ever expected to.

Dr. Bliss looked over at Arnold and smiled a bit knowingly at the expression on his face, which she could see in the window's reflection clearly. Looking in her rear view mirror, she could see Phoebe and Gerald were sitting together in the back seats, holding hands and looking forward. She was thinking idly about how young people these days seemed to be much older than she herself was at their age. Especially when it came to such ideas as love and friendship.

Christine Bliss thought that Helga was really lucky to have the three of them in her life, especially Arnold, who she saw was beginning to realize just how special a person Helga Pataki truly was. Or maybe, Arnold always felt that way on a deeper lever and was only now starting to realize those feelings?When she really considered things, she believe that the latter was more likely true, though she'd have to have a couple of secessions with the football-headed boy before she could be absolutely certain.

Arnold continued to stare out the window, watching as they passed by some factories, including the steel mill that him, Gerald and Helga once visited after they hitched a ride on what they thought was a haunted train. He smiled a little at the memory of how Arnold and Helga's dare standing outside on his stoop started the whole adventure. Both of them had been quite the rivals then. Indeed they still were to a point now whenever they played sports. He blinked and his eyes began to go moist as he realized more and more how big a hole had opened up in his life without the presence of the scowling, pigtailed girl in it.

They all rode in silence as they passed through some thick wooded areas, where the trees were all shedding their red, orange, yellow and golden leaves, and then waited for about five, or so minutes at a railroad crossing on a slow moving cargo train. It began to drizzle a little outside. Dr. Bliss turned on her slow wipers for the misty drops hitting her windshield.

At last they passed through the wooded area and into a clearing beyond. Then they rounded a couple of hills and farmlands they came within sight of the large, three story building, with several smaller buildings and a weather-worn water tower beyond a double set of fences topped with barbed wire all around. Arnold's heart clenched at the sight of the building, even from a distance, and behind them, he could hear Phoebe mutter softly, "Oh my, Helga." He agreed with her silently.

They approached the building, they came to a turn that took them to a fork in the road, in the middle of which was a sign which read: **Loading Docks** (with an arrow pointing to the right) and **Administrative and Visitor's Entrances **(with another arrow pointing to the left). They took the left which took them along the fence-line. Inside he could see a couple dozen, or so, girls running along a track between the double fences in blue jogging clothes. A truck was following behind them at about twenty paces, both male occupants looking on carefully.

Near the entrance and the sign with it's graffiti-covered correction stood next to a gate and a guard house. The male guard inside, wearing a pair of brown pants and light-brown shirt, with a gleaming silver badge and matching brown hat walked over to Dr. Bliss's window as they pulled up. He was holding a clipboard and had a dower expression on his face. Arnold could see the pistol on his belt, along with a can of something and a large night stick.

Dr. Bliss pushed the button and lowered her window. "Hello, my name is Christine Bliss, I have an appointment to see Dr. Lang, and to visit one of your inmates," the child psychologist explained pleasantly.

The guard's face didn't change, but he checked his clip-board and nodded when he found her name. "Very well, you may go on ahead. It's the parking lot to the right as you approach." He then turned without another word back into the guard house and the gates began to open slowly.

Dr. Bliss nodded and drove on past the gates and down a small road lined with new trees, no doubt to give visitors a good impression. Arnold saw some of the inmates there too, raking leaves and bagging them. They wore blue dungarees and matching jackets over their blue prison shirts. They had black toboggans on their heads to protect them from the cold and work gloves. A pair of large, unfriendly-looking female guards nearby watched on.

Finally they came up to the large building and took the right turn, where a sign marked: **Visitor's** **Parking** directed new arrivals to the facility. Dr. Bliss parked the car and all of them got out.

Arnold looked up at the main building. It was made of red bricks and looked a lot like PS 118, with the exception of the diamond-shaped wire fencing on the windows. The place had a gloomy feeling to it. This effect was added by the overcast clouds and the light drizzle that brushed against his cheeks. The cold air, and the feeling he got from the building chilled him almost to the bone.

"Come on, Arnold," Dr. Bliss said, putting her hand on his shoulder and giving it a gently squeeze. He looked at her and saw the concern in her eyes, along with an understanding that she felt the exact same way he felt as the sight of the reformatory. He looked back over at Gerald and Phoebe, both of whom were looking at each other sadly, then over at Arnold, offering what strength they could.

Arnold sighed and nodded, then looked back up at Dr. Bliss, "Let's go." She smiled and nodded as well, then together all four of them walked toward the building.

The entrance was a large, gray-painted metal door at the top of some concrete stairs with the words: **Visitor's Entrance** posted in red paint on it. A small square window with more of the wire fencing was on the door just above the words, the glass had a crack in one corner. They walked up the stoop and Dr. Bliss opened the door for the three kids.

Arnold walked inside, Gerald and Phoebe just behind him on either side. Dr. Bliss followed a moment later. They found themselves inside a small, empty waiting room with some metal benches to their right and a couple of snack and drink machines nearby to their left (one of which had lights that were flickering slightly). A garbage can and a gum ball machine stood beside these by the doorway. A pair of long, florescent lights flickered overhead. Across from them was a window, which was covered with more wire screening and had a mouthpiece with a microphone where one could talk through the glass. On either side of window, on the opposing walls were two more large, gray-painted metal doors, each with a metal lock bolted to it that had a red light on it. A security camera was aimed right above the window, it's small red light next to the lens blinking repeatedly. The amount of security and the feeling of incarceration made Arnold feel slightly claustrophobic.

Another guard stood beyond the window in a small office, this one was a thin, bored-looking female guard that had a horsy-like face. She looked up at them as they approached and addressed Dr. Bliss, "Can I help you?"

Dr. Bliss put on her usual cheerful face and said, "Yes, were here to visit one of your inmates, Helga Pataki, and I have an appointment to see Dr. Jennifer Lang. My name is Dr. Bliss."

The guard turned to look at some papers on a desk behind them and nodded "Oh yes, here it is. Do you wish to visit the inmate first, or to see Dr. Lang?"

"Humm, I will visit Helga first." Dr. Bliss said, after a moment's thought. Then she asked, "Would it be okay if I allow my friends here to visit with her while I go see Dr. Lang?"

The guard looked down at Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe, acknowledging them for the first time and then, turning back to Dr. Bliss, she said, "Very well, go through the door on the right and listen to the guard go over the procedures. Once you want to go, you may leave them and come back to the waiting room and I'll let you in to see Dr. Lang. I will also call ahead to let her know you've arrived."

"Thank you, I'd appreciate that," Dr. Bliss said, smiling and then turned to Arnold and the others. "Are you ready for this?"

Arnold took a deep breath and nodded. Gerald and Phoebe both shared a nod, Gerald took Phoebe's hand for comfort.

The door to the right of them buzzed loudly, causing the ten year olds to jump slightly. The light on the lock over the handle went from red to green and Dr. Bliss opened it. Arnold went inside first.

The room beyond was a long, narrow room with a desk and another hard-faced female guard on the right sitting behind it, lowering her newspaper to look at the new arrivals. To the left were about a dozen, or so, open cubicles with built-in desks and phone's attached to the left side of more wire-covered glass windows which separated the inmates and visitors. Arnold could already see several other adults and a couple of kids talking to several inmates through the phones. Like the waiting room they'd just come from, the room was painted a dull grayish color. The sadness of the faces made Arnold feel even more depressed inside this terrible place.

"Sign here, please," the guard at the desk told Arnold and the others, holding over a clipboard with several signatures already written on it in blue ink under the heading: Visitor(s). Beside this was another heading labeled: Inmate(s). A ball point pen was attached to the clipboard by a long, thin metal chain.. Dr. Bliss let Arnold sign his name first. Once everyone signed their name and handed the clipboard back to the guard, she turned to a phone on the desk and pushed one of the half-dozen lights.

After examining the board and another list she then she spoke into the receiver, "Visitor for Pataki, Helga, number zero-seven-twelve." Then she hung up the phone and turned back to them. "Okay, inmates are allowed to talk to visitors for twenty minutes. Be aware that for security purposes, all conversations are monitored." She said all of this in a monotone way, obviously it was the same speech that she gave to every visitor before them and probably after them. "Go to number ten."

Without another word, the visitors made their way across the cold, dark cement floor to the cubicle with a red-painted number ten over the top of the glass. A single metal and plastic backed chair waited for an occupant.

Arnold turned back to Dr. Bliss and asked her, "Would you like to go first, Dr. Bliss? We can each take five minutes to talk to Helga."

Dr. Bliss nodded, "Okay, Arnold. After that, I will go see my friend. When your time is up, all of you wait for me in the waiting room, till I return, all right?" Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe all nodded.

All of them remained standing at the cubicle waiting for Helga to arrive. A moment later, a large, tough-looking teenage girl, with a tattoo of a black widow on her left forearm walked by on the other side. She didn't even give them a glance as she went by. Arnold thought about the tough-looking girls he'd seen so far and Helga being incarcerated in this nightmare among them, and couldn't hold back the shudder that went through him, despite the relative warmth of the room.

After about four minutes of waiting, which seemed even longer to Arnold, Helga finally appeared in front of the glass. Phoebe let out a small, choked gasp behind him and Dr. Bliss whispered softly under her breath, "Oh my gosh." Gerald looked as shocked as Arnold felt upon seeing Helga for the first time since over a week ago, when she was pleading with him to believe her innocence. He felt his stomach leap up into his chest and his heart seize in his throat at the sight of her now.

She was dressed in the same prison dungarees, pants and long sleeve prison shirt with the same blue jean material. The shirt was unbuttoned showing off a dirty white tank top underneath. The number: 0712 were stenciled in black on the right breast of the shirt over the pocket. Her face was covered with bruises and scabs, and her right hand had a wooden splint and some white bandaging (which was slightly dirty now) over her pinky finger. One of the bruises on her face was deep purple and turning slightly greenish. She no longer had pigtails, and her golden yellow locks were cut short and seemed to be growing back only slightly. Her pink bow, the thing that always drew Arnold's notice to her; the symbol that seemed to define her in the same way his own small, blue cap seemed a part of him, was missing.

Helga looked up at him, her eyes seemed to brighten up and her face, with all of its purple bruises, seemed to brighten with them. It was a good change from her usual sour demeanor at school and made Arnold feel a little better inside somehow. She walked over to the cubicle on her side and grabbed the phone receiver beside the wall to her right before she sat.

Dr. Bliss took the receiver on their end and put it to her ear. Arnold stood just beside her on the right, while Gerald and Phoebe took her left side. She spoke into it, "Hello, Helga, it's good to see you."

Helga brightened considerably at the words and she spoke, though Arnold couldn't hear them. Dr. Bliss smiled more and asked, "I came by to talk to you, frankly all of us have been worried about you, especially your friends here." Helga blinked and looked at Arnold first, then over at Gerald and Phoebe. Arnold thought he could see tears in her eyes and then Helga spoke again into the receiver on her end. Dr. Bliss again smiled and nodded a moment. "That's right, Helga." Arnold saw her visibly smile and glance his way a moment before turning her attention back to Dr. Bliss and speaking again. Arnold had the distinct impression that they'd been talking about him just then.

Dr. Bliss listened to Helga talk and sighed, "No, I'm afraid that I haven't heard anything more about your trial, or anything about the case. I do know that your parents have hired an attorney and are exploring possible strategies on how to deal with this situation. I mean the evidence against you is entirely circumstantial at best." Helga spoke again, and there was no mistaking the way she looked in Arnold's mind when she spoke. She was mad, or upset. Dr. Bliss nodded, "Everything that can be done is being done, I promise you, Helga. We're all going to do our best to get you out of this place." Arnold saw Helga sigh and nod, looking tired. Then she spoke again, looking at him then the others. Dr. Bliss nodded, "Okay, Helga, were taking turns anyhow and I have to go see a friend of mine who works here." After a pause and some unheard inquiring from Helga, Dr. Bliss answered, "Dr. Lang." Helga seemed to blinked and mouth the words back, looking incredulously at Dr. Bliss. Arnold wondered why, but didn't ask as Dr. Bliss stood and said, "Well, I better go so you can talk to your friends before time runs out. Take care, Helga and hang in there, okay?" Helga nodded and smiled a little, mouthing a reply back.

Dr. Bliss then turned to them and said, "All right then, who's next?" She looked over at Arnold.

Arnold sighed and said, "Phoebe is Helga's best friend, maybe she should go next, then Gerald. I'll talk to her last." In reality, Arnold wanted to talk to Helga very badly and didn't really want to wait, but a part of him was nervous to do so, especially with all of the conflicting emotions running through him.

Dr. Bliss noted this hesitation to talk on Arnold's part, but didn't bring it up. Instead she nodded and handed the receiver over to Phoebe, who sat down and looked at Helga, tears forming in her small, dark eyes behind her glasses. Then Dr. Bliss turned to Arnold and Gerald, "I will meet you guys in the waiting room in about twenty minutes, or so, all right?" Arnold nodded and Gerald did the same, adding, "Yes, Dr. Bliss." The child psychiatrist nodded and then went over to the desk and the female guard behind it let her out.

"Oh, Helga, I – I've missed you _so_ much!" Phoebe suddenly wailed into the receiver and started to cry softly. Gerald was at her side a moment later, as was Arnold. Behind the wire-lined glass window, Helga was talking and looking very sad also. Arnold could hear Helga's voice in the receiver, but couldn't make out any of the words themselves. Phoebe sniffled and sobbed more, "What are they doing to you, Helga? How did you get all of those bruises?"

Arnold watched Helga smiled and seem to flippantly say something and gesturing with her hands in front of the glass. Phoebe sniffled and let out a choked-sounding noise that sounded, almost amused. Then Phoebe spoke again, "Don't worry Helga, like Dr. Bliss said, all of the evidence against you is circumstantial and the rest of us will not give up on you, or stop believing in your innocence." Helga smiled and nodded behind the glass.

Gerald then looked down at Phoebe, who looked at him. "May I talk to her a second, babe?" Gerald asked her smiling a little. Phoebe wiped her eyes and nodded, then spoke back into the receiver, "Gerald wants to say something to you, okay, Helga?" Helga nodded behind the glass.

Phoebe then handed Gerald the receiver and stood up and Arnold put his right arm around her small shoulders and led her a few steps away. Behind them, he heard Gerald say, "Hey there, Helga, how's life in the joint?" Arnold knew he was trying to be funny to lighten the mood since Phoebe broke down. He glanced back and saw, with a smile that Helga actually looked a bit like her older self when she answered, earning a small chuckle from Gerald surprisingly.

Arnold then turned his attention back to Phoebe and asked her, "Are you all right, Phoebe?"

Phoebe wiped her eyes and nodded, "Yeah, I think I'll be okay, Arnold." She looked at him and smiled weakly, "It's just . . . such a shock seeing her like this."

Nodding in sympathy, Arnold agreed with her. "Yeah, I know what you mean." He looked back at the glass as Helga was talking to Gerald. He saw her glance his way then say something that made Gerald nod and turn toward Arnold, "Hey, man, she wants to talk to you now." He looked at his best friend with a small smile on his face.

Arnold nodded at Gerald then turned to look at Helga, who was looking back at him intently, almost eagerly. Briefly, Arnold wondered if Helga missed him, almost as much as he missed her. He went over and sat down, picking up the receiver and putting it against his left ear. "Hey Helga." He said softly, looking right into her large, blue eyes. Those same blue eyes sparkled a little with happiness when she spoke back into the receiver just as softly, "Hey there, football-head."

He felt his own eyes begin to water again out of pure joy. Arnold smiled a little and said, "You know, I never thought I'd be happy to hear you call me that." His heart pounded in his chest. "I missed you a lot, Helga."

Helga bit her bottom lip a moment and then said, "I missed you too, Arnold-o." They looked into each other's eyes and then she smirked and said, in her usual flippant manner, breaking up the sappy moment, "I've missed tossing spitwads at you in class and kicking your butt when we play baseball."

Arnold actually let out a small laugh, seeing that she was trying to be funny, and answered, "I sort-of miss that too."

Both of them looked at each other again a moment, then Helga leaned forward, resting her left arm on the table near the glass and asked him, "So, how's life in 'The Outs' been treating you?"

"The outs?" Arnold asked, raising an eyebrow slightly confused.

"Oh, that's inside talk for the real world, you know, the outside, doi," Helga explained, shaking her head a little, as if the meaning should have been obvious.

"Oh, um right," Arnold said, feeling a bit foolish. He should have been able to figure that one out for himself. Then he answered, "Well, things haven't quite been the same at school, or in the neighborhood since you were sent here. Everyone thinks your guilty." He looked angry as he said that. "But listen to me, Helga, I don't believe that for a minute, and neither do any of us." He gestured back to Gerald and Phoebe, who stood a few feet away nodding.

Helga smiled and her bottom lip trembled slightly, "Thanks, I really appreciate that. I also appreciated your letters, they meant a lot."

Arnold smiled and said, "No problem, Helga. I was happy to write to you." He saw her eyes sparkle and it made him feel good somehow. "Helga, we've been trying to find out what happened, but we can't find any new evidence." He grew a bit quiet and looked down, unable to look at her then. "I promised you I'd help get you out of this, but I – I don't know what else I could do. I'm sorry." He felt ready to really cry now, as he had before on the way home from school that day.

Helga's voice spoke up, "Hey, Arnold, look at me." He looked up and saw her looking at him seriously, determined. "I know that you'd do your best, that's what you do. Your Arnold, the hero. Arnold, the rescuer. Arnold, the investigator. It's so like you, Arnold-o, to try and be the hero, and to right the wrongs on the world, and . . ." Helga trailed off and smiled. Indeed, as she said all that, she hadn't sounded angry, or annoyed as she normally would have. In fact, she even sounded, well, like she was paying him a complement for once. It made Arnold feel a little bit better.

She sighed into the receiver and looked at him again, "Arnold, I really do appreciate everything, and I hope you do find out what's going on, but don't beat yourself up if you can't. In fact, I'm amazed you'd even _try_ to do all of this for me." She actually blushed a little and looked slightly down at the glass.

Arnold smiled and said, "Helga, of course I would, and I will keep trying, even if it's hard. You didn't start that fire, you don't belong in here. I won't let them keep you in this place." He sounded really determined now, seeing her like she was.

Helga looked up at him again and nodded, "Arnold, the best thing you can do for me, while I am in here, is to watch after Phoebe for me. She needs someone around to protect her, and well, I guess you and Tall Hair Boy there will have to do." She smiled as she told him that, again trying to be funny.

Arnold smiled and said, "You bet I will, so will Gerald." He grinned and then said, "Him and Phoebe are getting along really well nowadays."

Helga blinked and smiled more, "Really? Well, I suppose Phoebe could do worse that him. But, if he gets out of line with her, when I get out of here, he'll have to answer to 'Ole Betsy'." She raised her fist up, though winced a bit moving her splinted finger.

"What happened to your finger anyhow?" Arnold asked, looking at the splints and then to her face. He'd avoided asking her about those bruises, knowing Helga would just put on a brave front and say something to blow it off. He could make his guesses about those, and it only made him feel worse for Helga.

Helga looked at her finger and said, "Oh, I had an accident with a rat trap." She didn't bother to tell Arnold that the "accident" hadn't really been one at all. She wasn't about to go telling Arnold all about Bowers and Pena and anything inside there. She could see that Arnold was really sad, and her heart did secret flip-flops knowing that it was about her, but she didn't want to make him feel any worse than he obviously was right now.

Arnold didn't believe her for a moment, but he decided not to press the matter. She looked like she was already sad enough, and he didn't want to add to her burden about anything else. Instead, he fingered the locket that he had in his pocket and said, "Helga, listen. No matter what, I am not going to just wait around and do nothing while you're in this nightmare. I don't know how, but I am going to prove you are innocent."

Helga smiled at his determination, though she didn't really think he would be able to pull a miracle off this time, like he did with the whole FTI, neighborhood thing. Even then, a lot of his help had come from her efforts spying on her father's crooked business partner, then disguising herself to tell Arnold anonymously.

"Just being here and believing in me is enough for me, football-head," she smiled.

Arnold did too, not minding the term now. In that tone, her usual scathing term for him became an affectionate nickname. His heart suddenly felt three times bigger that it had before. He fingered the locket in his pants pocket a moment and then he was about to tell her he had it, when a gruff voice suddenly spoke up from the receiver: "One more minute."

Helga sighed and muttered, "Criminey!" Arnold nodded feeling the same way. He looked at her and felt the urge to tell her how he felt, or was beginning to believe he felt. "Helga, listen, there isn't much time, and I . . . I need to tell you something important."

She looked up at him, and blinked, "Um, yes, Arnold?" Helga looked suddenly anxious by his tone and the familiarity of his words._ 'Could it be?' _She wondered to herself, _'Can this be it! Is Arnold about to tell me how much he cares for me!' _She thought maybe she was imagining this moment, that any moment she would wake up and be in her bunk back in Dorm C.

Arnold rubbed the back of his neck and looked off to the side, "Well, that is, I – well, I miss you _so_ much, Helga. I mean, I _really_ miss you. I really, _really_ miss you . . . that is, I, well, I miss you so much, in fact, that I think I – well, that I . . ." He trailed off and thought, _'Why can't I just say it! I mean, it's just three stupid words! Is it really that hard to say them!'_

Helga looked at him surprised and with a small amount of wonder on her bruised and beaten face. "That you what?" She leaned forward thinking, _'Oh please be what I think it is!'_ Arnold did the same, taking a small gulp and then meeting her eyes. They looked so close now. "That I . . ."

"Times up, Pataki!" The voice of a guard said in the receiver and then the sound clicked off. Both Arnold and Helga blinked, the spell between them once again broken by an outside force. Arnold saw Helga mouth a word behind the glass into the receiver that he would never have said, but agreed with none-the-less.

Helga looked at him behind the glass sadly and smiled a little. She then stood and put her right hand, which was uninjured, against the glass, her large, blue eyes looking moist. Arnold smiled sadly, eyes also moist and also stood and placed his own left hand against the glass against hers, looking back at her thoughtfully.

A moment later, a female guard showed up and put a hand on Helga's shoulder, then motioned for her to come. Helga backed away, hand pulling away from the glass and walked off, looking back once at Arnold. He saw a tear slide down her right cheek before she was taken out of sight.

"I love you, Helga," he whispered softly, though it was too late for her to hear them. Behind him, Gerald blinked and looked at Arnold surprised and Phoebe smiled sadly, tears in her own eyes. The three of them quietly went back to the waiting room to wait on Dr. Bliss.

_**To Be Continued . . . **_

_I would like to take this opportunity to announce another great milestone for both me and for this fanfiction story "Falsely Accused". With this chapter, "Falsely Accused" has become the first fanfcition work of mine to reach over 100,000 words! I would also like to thank all of you who read and review this fanfic, especially those who have stuck with this story since it was first published and faithfully continued reading it. God Bless each and every one of you and May The Force Be With You, Always! -DarthRoden (a.k.a. Carl)_


	36. Part 35: Old Friends And New Concerns

**Part Thirty-Five: Old Friends And New Concerns **

Dr. Bliss walked back out into the waiting room just after talking to Helga and was being buzzed into the other door across from the visitor's room where the facility's administration offices were located. She went down a large hallway with pipes along the ceiling and long florescent lights brightly lighting up the way. Their were several doors marked along this hallway, some of them offices and classroom areas. Every door had a glass window with wire mesh screening.

To Dr. Bliss, who made it her business to keep up a relaxed environment for those who come to her for help, the entire place seemed so closed in and claustrophobic. _'Of course, this is a prison after all,'_she thought to herself and shuddered a bit.

Cherry Hill Juvenile was not designed to give it's residents a sense of security, but rather to secure _them_ from the rest of society. She understood the necessity for places like this, but that didn't mean that she was fond of the idea of anyone being inside them. All of her training and experience, as well as Dr. Bliss's own easy-going personality, told her that noone was beyond the need for help. She had not come across a case where someone was so far gone that they could not be helped, so long as they want that help, or can be shown that they were not beyond it themselves.

Cherry Hill itself was a realistic example of what happens when some people don't see the need for help, or simply choose to ignore the idea of improving themselves. Granted some people can offer economic issues or personal ones for their own failures, but the fact remained that some people, instead of trying to better themselves; or sticking with their desires to change for the better, choose instead to revert back to the same ways that got them in trouble in the first place. Sometimes people just needed the proper guidance to help them see that they can be better than the circumstances that brought them to trouble, but that likewise only applies if that person is willing to see that. The facility Dr. Bliss was in was last stop for a lot of those who never had that chance, or simply ignored the reasons to change for themselves.

Dr. Bliss knew that Cherry Hill was an older juvenile facility, built in a time where such social and psychological concerns were thought of. This place was not specifically designed to help people, although nowadays there were supposed to be programs and job assignments in places like this to help in the process of rehabilitation. Cherry Hill, when it was built by the State, was specifically designed for the simple black and white purpose of locking away all the "bad apples" and "troublemakers" for the extent of their sentence. Period. End of story.

Finally, after going up some stairs and turning a corner, Dr. Bliss found a door marked: **Psychiatrist Office **which was a solid wooden one painted green with a wooden nameplate on it that read: **Dr. J. Lang. **A green-painted wooden bench sat outside the door, no doubt for those who needed to wait before seeing the psychiatrist.

Smiling, Dr. Bliss walked over to the door and knocked softly on it. From inside, a voice she knew very well said, "Come in." She opened the door to the small, cramped office where her school friend and roommate Dr. Jennifer Lang sat, looking up from some paperwork. The short, brown-haired woman's eyes brightened behind her wire-rimmed glasses and her wide mouth set into a pleased smile. She stood and came around the desk saying, "Christine! It's good to see you, please come in."

Dr. Bliss smiled and walked in, closing the door behind her. She then went over to her old friend and gave her a tight hug. "It's really good to see you too, Jen." She pulled back and smiled looking her over and said, "You've changed your hair color. It looks great."

Dr. Lang grinned, "Thanks, and I see you lost a few pounds. Damn it's been so long."

"Too long," agreed a still smiling Dr. Bliss.

Nodding, Dr. Lang motioned to the chair in front of her desk, "Please, have a seat. Welcome to my office. I know it isn't much, but I'm just thankful that the administration didn't just stick me into some basement."

Dr. Bliss sat down and looked around at the green paint, the ceiling fan, the windows (which were now closed against the downpour of rain that must have started right after they went inside earlier) and said, "It's small, but cozy."

Dr. Lang snorted, "In the winter it's cold, even with the radiator, and in the summer, it's like an oven. Still, it serves it's purpose." She then sighed and said, as she sat in her own chair, "I only wish that more of the residents here actually came to talk to me more often. Do you want some coffee?"

Dr. Bliss smiled and nodded, "Yes please." Then she glanced over and noticed the pictures of Dr. Lang's family on the desk, "Oh my goodness, the twins have really grown up, haven't they?"

"Like weeds," Jennifer Lang said, glancing at the picture proudly a moment as she poured a couple of mugs of coffee from a pot plugged nearby. She sighed. "It seems like only yesterday that me and Ronald brought them home from the hospital." Then she looked at Dr. Bliss and said, "So, what have you been doing with yourself since college?"

"Well, I took some more school down in St. Matthews and then I got my job about a year ago in Hillwood working at the Medical Clinic on Seventh Street. I divide my time between three schools, examining the students. Sometimes it can be rough, but I manage to keep things well organized." Dr. Lang set the mug down on the desk in front of her and Dr. Bliss nodded as she picked it up and took a sip, "Thanks."

Dr. Lang nodded and smiled at her as she set her own mug down and sat behind her desk. "I'm glad your doing well. Remember how we both were in college?" Dr. Bliss grinned and shook her head, "Yeah we were quite a pair, huh?" Both women smiled a moment, lost in the nostalgia of carefree college days and the promises of bright futures.

Then Dr. Lang shook her head again and sighed, "Well, it sounds like you manage to get along well with your patients at any rate. Most of mine either consider me just another administrator. Sometimes it's hard to get them to open up. Of course, those are only the ones who actually _want_ someone to talk to. Most of the residents here keep to themselves, or to their own groups and peers." She looked up at Dr. Bliss and smiled, but with only a little humor, added, "You help the ones out there and I help the ones that make it here."

Dr. Bliss smiled but sadly for her friend and her chosen line of work in their field. Dealing with juvenile delinquents inside a correctional facility wouldn't have been Dr. Bliss's first choice, no matter how willing she would be to help kids like them. Mostly, it was her job to ensure that the ones she did help did not end up in here.

Dr. Lang continued, "Well, the real this is a lot different from the lessons, but we've both done well for ourselves and those we help. At least, for the most part, I do." She shrugged. "At least I hope so."

"Well, if I remember correctly, Jen, you were never one to give up without a fight," Dr. Bliss said, smiling honestly now. "I think that the inmates here don't know how lucky they are to have someone like you close by." She looked again at the picture of the two twin girls and the her friend's husband. "You've done very well for yourself, Jen."

Jennifer Lang smiled and looked at her, "Thanks, Chris, that means a lot to me."

Both of them made some more small talk about their old school friends a moment before turning to the issue they now had in common once again.

"I saw Helga before I came up to see you," Dr. Bliss began, looking down at her coffee a moment. "She looked like she'd been in a fight, probably several of them." That was understating it a bit. When Dr. Bliss saw Helga behind the glass in the visitor's room, she thought Helga looked like she been thrown from a moving bus.

Dr. Lang looked at her and sighed, "That's entirely possible considering her background and personality according to her records. Kids like her come here all the time and the first thing that usually happens is they try to establish some sort-of domination over those around them as they had back on the streets, or in school."

Dr. Bliss glanced up at Dr. Lang a moment. "What do you mean by 'kids like her' Jen?" Although Dr. Bliss thought she had a really good idea by what her friend meant.

"Bullies," Dr. Lang said, leaning back in her chair. "Her school records indicate a person with an anti-social personality disorder at best." She pulled out a file from underneath a stack of papers that had Helga's records, including her arrest record and Dr. Lang's own personal notes. "Dozens of fights and confrontations in the last couple of years alone. Then they decides to graduate to arson. Go ahead and take a look for yourself."

Dr. Bliss made no move to take the file and set her coffee down before she spoke. "Jen, I am fully aware of what is in her file. Indeed, one of the incidents in question occurred in my presence." She remembered all too well the time she saw Helga strike another boy named Brainey in the nose near her locker. The incident led to their first session and a new friendship for both of them.

"Then you are very well acquainted with the sort-of behavior I am talking about," Dr. Lang said, mouth tightening as she went on. "When she was interviewed not long after her arrival here, she was openly defiant and angry. Completely unremorseful for her crime. Granted I get that often enough, every juvenile here is innocent, or wrongly convicted according to them. It doesn't often take me long to get the truth out the them though. In Pataki's case though, she even attempted to intimidate me."

Dr. Bliss listened to all of this, her own mouth tightening ever-so slowly before she finally had enough. She looked at Dr. Lang and said, "Jen, I want you to know that I too think Helga Pataki is innocent of the charges against her."

Dr. Lang blinked and looked at her friend carefully for a moment before she responded, "I see." She glanced down at her own coffee a few seconds before asking bluntly, "How long has she been a patient of yours?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," Dr. Bliss said, although she did have a guess where this was going.

"You always had the problem when it comes to keeping things on a strictly doctor-patient level," Dr. Lang began, looking up at her friend again. "It's admirable to try and befriend them all, but sometimes it can blind us to certain things . . ."

Dr. Bliss stood up and said, "And I suppose your own objectivity is perfect?" She frowned at her friend and said bluntly, "Jenny, Helga is not Rachel."

Dr. Lang stood up now also, a dark look crossing her features. "Don't you dare say that to me, Chris! Don't you ever call _my_ objectivity into question! I try to stay professional!"

Christine Bliss sighed and shook her head, "That's always been your blind spot, Jen. I know that you went through a lot with Rachel, and how that influenced you to taking this line of work."

Dr. Lang gave her a warning look and said carefully, "Christine, I didn't call you here to pick a fight with you."

Dr. Bliss calmed down considerably and sat back down. Dr. Lang did the same, though the temperature in the room seemed cooler by a few degrees. "So tell me, Jen, why am I here?"

Dr. Lang sighed and opened the file and looked down at some papers. "Well, I wanted to discuss with you some things about Pataki's records that doesn't quite make sense." She pulled out several papers and handed them over. "These are some test scores in the classes that the students take to continue their education while they are here. Pataki's scores are above average for most inmates. Indeed, when I looked back into her school records, I found that she is quite a gifted students. Lots of A's and B's and only a few C's. In my experience bullies are somewhat insecure and neglect their education, but this one doesn't."

Now Dr. Bliss smiled again seeing where this was going. Her previous anger at Dr. Lang was forgotten as she said, "Helga does seem to have the characteristics of a bully, as you've said. However, there is more to her than meets the eye."

Dr. Lang looked at her, noting her tone and she too was no long angry. Now her previous anger was replaced with confusion and slight annoyance. "Well, when I saw that you were her school psychiatrist, I thought that you would have some explanation for these contradictions."

Dr. Bliss shrugged, "Why don't you just talk to Helga yourself and earn her trust as I had to?"

Now Jennifer Lang sighed and said, "Chris, I am the only councilor for nearly six hundred inmates currently incarcerated at Cherry Hill. Most of them are nothing more than foster children who commit crimes and cause mayhem because they are angry with their situation. Others are hoodlums and bullies who go to far and get sent here. Then we have some who are almost career criminals themselves and probably won't live to their twenties at the rate some of them are going." She shook her head, "I can only do so much, and I don't have time to watch over just one while others who actually _want _my help need me."

"Jen, don't think for one minute that I don't understand your situation, I do," Dr. Bliss said to her sympathetically. "I think you do a very good job under the circumstances."

Dr. Lang laughed humorlessly, "I don't even know about that anymore."

Dr. Bliss looked at her and said, "Is something the matter?"

Standing again, Dr. Lang walked over to the window and looked out at the rain falling outside. She sighed and said, "The other day there was an incident with one of the inmates. A girl tried to escape, but fell and suffered a head injury trying to get over the inner fence line." She heard Dr. Bliss gasp behind her. She told her the unfortunate story of the incident with the inmate Susanna Halloway. She concluded by saying, "I should have insisted that she come with me right then, but I didn't. Now the girl is in serious condition and it partly my fault."

"No, it's not," Dr. Bliss said, standing up and walking over to her. "Jen, you can't blame yourself for what happened. Like you said, you can't be everywhere at once."

Dr. Lang smiled a little, "Thanks, that helps a little coming from you." Then she frowned a bit, "The worst part about the whole thing was that I keep feeling that this incident isn't over with. The type of hazing that the poor girl went through was terrible." She hadn't given Dr. Bliss all of the details of the abuse, mostly because she couldn't bring herself to mention them. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Chris. I know I'm getting off subject here."

Dr. Bliss hugged her and said, "Jen, don't worry about it, and I'm sorry about losing my temper before. I'm just really worried about Helga."

"You really seem to care a lot about this girl, don't you?" Dr. Lang observed, raising an eyebrow slightly. "You two talk a lot then?"

Smiling, Dr. Bliss said, "Yes, and that's why I believe in her innocence. I've been getting to know Helga for a year now, and committing an act or arson simply is not in her character." She looked at Dr. Lang and went on. "I know what those files say she _did_ and what her behavior is like, but what they don't say is_ why_ is acts the way she does. I can't say myself, because of the oath I took to keep things in confidence, but what I can tell you is that Helga Pataki is now what she appears to be."

Dr. Lang shook her head, "Which tells me nothing I haven't already figured out from her test scores." She looked back at the folders on her desk and seemed to be lost in thought.

"Try to get to know her, and watch her actions, Jen," Dr. Bliss advised. "I learned from experience that it takes a lot to earn her trust and confidence, but keep trying and you'll understand what I'm talking about."

Dr. Lang looked back at her and nodded after a moment. "Okay, Chris. I'll try to keep a closer eye on her."

Smiling, Dr. Bliss said, "Thanks, Jen. I would really appreciate that. Helga may act all tough and blustery, but deep inside, she is scared and afraid. In this place I don't think I could blame her."

Dr. Lang could only nod in agreement. "This place is hard on some of these kids. Many of them come away hardened and worse than when they first arrived. Others come away in even worse shape, physically and mentally also."

Dr. Bliss closed her eyes a moment, worried more than before about Helga. "Please look after Helga, Jen."

Dr. Lang inclined her head and said, "I will do the best I can, Chris. I swear."

Nodding, Dr. Bliss said, "I have do doubt about that, Jen."

Both of them hugged and Dr. Lang escorted Dr. Bliss back downstairs to the waiting room, where Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe waited.

Dr. Bliss smiled and said, "Oh, Jen, I want you to meet three friends of Helga's. These are Arnold, Phoebe and Gerald."

Dr. Lang smiled and looked down at the three ten year olds curiously as she said, "I'm pleased to meet all of you." All of them replied much the same way, just simple greetings and nods.

After those were done, Dr. Bliss and Dr. Lang both said their goodbyes and made plans to talk about once a week to keep in touch before finally parting company.

The four that came to see Helga walked back to Dr. Bliss's car and she drove them back to Hillwood. Hardly a word was said the whole time, all of them were too lost in their thoughts and concerns for Helga.

_**To Be Continued . . . **_

_What do you think of the exchange? Too fast or too slow? Hope you liked it either way. The next chapter will be up soon as I can type it. Keep those reviews coming! -D.R._


	37. Part 36: Routines And Nightmares

**Part Thirty-Six: Routines** **And Nightmares**

For the next week, life on the inside was back to it's usual routine for Helga and the rest of the inmates in Dorm C. Life in the dorm was the usual routine every day.

The lights came on at approximately 6 A.M. every morning and the inmates wake up to dress out for their morning run after being counted. Helga and Miranda were now doing much better at keeping up without being too winded. It was getting cooler outside, autumn this year was colder than it had been in previous years. There had even been some fog last night. It was still gray and cold outside, like it was constantly on the verge of raining.

After the morning run, the inmates would return to the dorm to change into their regular prison uniforms and go to breakfast, which usually consisted of greasy bacon, runny eggs, grits, sausage, bread rolls, and a carton of milk. This would also include, in Helga's case, Trashmouth making some sort-of mockery of the cooking, which the trustee, Sutherland, would usually make some similar comment back at her. This morning it started out with Trashmouth saying, "Ugh, Sutherland, this might look like breakfast, but it smells like kennel chow." Sutherland replied by looking at her, cigarette dangling from the left of her mouth, and saying, "Well, that's cause I'm cooking for a pack of bitches." Trashmouth only laughed and acknowledged that Sutherland won the exchange. Helga, Miranda and PG only rolled their eyes. They did that a lot around Trashmouth.

After a breakfast period that doesn't exceed about twenty minutes of time once the last person was served, the inmates are marched back to the dorm to be counted again and given their work assignments for the day. Helga spent time between the now famous "shit house patrol" and the laundry. Helga didn't like either job. Both dealt with cleaning dirty things, either soiled underwear and work clothes, or toilets and sinks. Despite the fact that the laundry was more tiring than the dorm's bathroom, and usually wore Helga out faster, she preferred to be in the laundry and around more people and better guards instead of nearly alone while Bowers and Pena were around, especially on days when Miss Walker was the guard on duty. So far, since the two inmates returned from the hole, they did little more than shoot Helga glares when they saw her and mutter darkly among themselves. Helga knew that soon she would have to face them again. She simply dreaded not knowing when and where that would be.

Once the inmates were done with their duties for the day, they were allowed to relax in the dorm, socialize, and partake of some of the recreational activities, such as playing ping-pong, or watch television (which it turned out was some educational channel and old movies which few of them actually cared for). The little tokens they were given by the guard on duty for their assignments were just enough for a couple of sodas in the drink machines beside the officer's station. Helga hated to go over there, particularly when Miss Walker was there. They would wait there until everyone was done with their assignments and counted. Then at noon they would go and have lunch, which would be something new every day, and not particularly well prepared at times.

After lunch, which was also about the same length of time as breakfast, the inmates would then go to classes for their continued education. To Helga, who did pretty well in school (though never well enough to compare to her nearly perfect, and sainted older sister, Olga in her parents eyes) the classes they did were somewhat simple, even childish. Helga found out, to her shock and surprise, that most of the other girls who shared her dorm were on a reading level that might have been well for a first grader, and little better at anything else. Most of them neglected their education while they were growing up, either because they were picked on, or were busy being bullies in school, or because they were lazy, or just thought school was an excuse to socialize rather than actually learn. Even now, most of them, including Trashmouth used the time to toss paper balls and spitwads at one another. Bowers and Pena both shot spitwads and rubber bands at Helga, Miranda, PG and Trashmouth from their places in the back of the class. Being on this side of it, Helga now had a bit more sympathy toward what Arnold went through with her. Class work was easy for someone like Helga, who took her own education for granted, and for Miranda, who had been a somewhat good student herself before coming here.

After this, they were given time in the exercise yard before dinner. If it was raining, as it had been most days since Helga arrived here, they went back to the dorm for free time. After an hour or so in the yard, they were returned to the dorm, recounted and had to straighten up the dorm if it was in disorder. Dinner was at 6 P.M. and after that, another two hours before lights out.

All in all, a simple routine which should have made the days go by faster. Yet, for Helga, they didn't. If anything, each and every day in Cherry Hell seemed to be a slow, tiring one. Each day was like torture, especially since Helga never felt safe in the Dorm, or anywhere else in the facility.

The Bear didn't bother Helga anymore, although she did watch her every now and again with an expression Helga couldn't quite figure out, except to see that it wasn't an angry one, just a curious one. After their fight in the yard, the other inmates, for the most part, didn't get in Helga's way, or ignored her.

The only exceptions to this were Bowers and Pena, who Helga considered the worst two people she'd ever meet in her life. Worse than normal considering that both of them were in Cherry Hell because they'd each committed violent crimes and had a relationship with Miss Walker that allowed them to continue bullying others. They had it out for Helga especially it seemed, and Helga had a suspicion that it had something to do with Miss Walker herself.

Miss Walker bothered Helga in some way that she couldn't quite think of. She didn't understand why, but for some reason, whenever the guard looked at her, Helga thought that she was looking right through her, or in some other way that made her feel extremely modest somehow. It was also obvious that Miss Walker hated Helga also. Maybe because of her attitude, or because she didn't look away from Walker when addressed. Helga G. Pataki didn't back down from anyone. Still, sometimes Helga didn't look at Walker whenever she could help it. The woman was just creepy somehow.

Then one night about a week after Arnold and the others came to visit, Helga had a very bad dream.

She dreamed that she was back in the juvenile court dressed in her juvenile detention uniform being sentenced again for her alleged crimes, this time by Miss Walker dressed in the judge's robe banging the gavel. Then she looked around at the jury box, which was now full of her classmates, all of whom looked at her frowning. Rhonda stood up and declared her guilty of her crimes. Then Judge Walker sentenced her to five years in Cherry Hell.

There were applause from the spectators, all of whom included the people she'd known her whole life in the neighborhood, Mr. Simmons, Principal Wartz, Mr. Green, the boarders who stayed at Arnold's house, and her classmate's parents. All of them had grim faces like the jury. In the front isle, Bob and Miriam were both looking disappointed and Bob said, "This never would have happened to Olga." Miriam only nodded. Next to them were Dr. Bliss, Phoebe, Gerald and Arnold. There was no sympathy in any of their eyes. Dr. Bliss stood and clapped glaring at Helga intensely, while Gerald shook his head in disappointment. Phoebe was crying and saying, "How could you do it, Helga?"

Helga tried to say the she didn't do it, right as she was being handcuffed behind her back by the same arresting police officers. Then Arnold stood up and looked at her. His usual half-lidded eyes were now angry and filled with hatred. The sight alone seized Helga's heart. Arnold shook his head and said, "Helga, I can't believe that you'd ever think I could love you after this." Then he turned to Lila and said, "Want to be my girlfriend." Lila smiled and said, "Oh Arnold, of course I will! I'd like to heal your broken heart just ever-so much."

Helga screamed so loud in the dream that the shock of it woke her up. She sat up and just barely avoided scratching her forehead on the top of the bunk, where Trashmouth snored lightly, still asleep somehow. She let out a gasp of fear and looked around, trying to get her bearings. Her breaths came in quick gasps and her heart was running as fast as a rabbit in her anxiety. She realized it had all been another bad dream. She groan and flopped back on the mattress shaking and sweating at the same time. The white tank-top and underwear she slept in were soaked through with perspiration.

Every since she emerged from The Hole, Helga's dreams every night had been plagued with nightmares about shocking things mostly concerning rats, or Miss Walker, or prison inmates ganging up on her, and other frightening situations concerning all of the above. Some nights they were not so bad and she managed to sleep till the morning bell, but other times, like tonight, she would wake up abruptly from the shocking images that filled her brain. On those nights she never got back to sleep and was in for a long night.

Helga looked up at the springs where her picture of Arnold looked down on her, his smile fixed and his green, half-lidded eyes shown the kindness that she knew all too well and drew comfort from. She gradually controlled her breathing to deep breaths and her heart slowed back to normal. She remembered that Arnold sent her that picture himself and that he did believe in her, as did Phoebe, Gerald and Dr. Bliss. As usual that brought her comfort, though not a whole lot.

As she guessed, she didn't manage to get back to sleep again for the rest of the night.

The next day, there was a break in the routine just after breakfast. Instead of being sent off for work assignments as usual, they were permitted to have the morning off. Helga, Trashmouth, Miranda, and PG all went to sit at one of the tables near the bathroom entrance in the back.

Trashmouth took a drag on a cigarette and said, "We'll be getting us some new cherries today."

PG nodded and fed Tony under the table, "Yeah, that's the only reason they let us have off beside's on Sundays."

Miranda looked at Helga concerned. Then she looked over at Trashmouth, "What's going to happen when they get here?"

Blowing out some evil-smelling smoke, Trashmouth answered, "We'll they'll be inducted the way you were." She smiled then and said, "Look on the bright side, as of now, your cherries have officially been popped. You two are no longer the newbies. Congrads." She took their hands shaking them and grinning in her usual silly way.

Helga scowled and snatched her hand away. "Hey, some personal space, toots."

The door of the Dorm opened inside the office and several scared-looking girls were ushered inside the fenced in office by Miss Walker, who was smirking terribly now. The guard on duty took the paperwork from Walker and started addressing the new arrivals, probably going over the rules as they had when Helga and Miranda arrived.

While this was going on, Helga noticed several inmates were making their way closer to the doorway getting in two crude lines. This was something else Helga remembered all too well from her first day. She turned to Trashmouth, "We don't have to get involved with this, do we?"

Trashmouth shook her head and just said, "Not really, the girls just do it to welcome the new cherries, it's traditional, but not mandatory. Helga just nodded thankfully for that. No matter how much of a bully she may have been before at PS 118, there was no way she could spit on someone . . . unless they really pissed her off.

Finally the gates opened and the girls were led inside. There were ten in all, each in their previously owned inmate clothes, all with their hair practically cut off, and smelling like bug spray. Most of them looked younger, vulnerable somehow, just like Miranda did. Helga wondered what they did, or if any of them, like her, had been falsely imprisoned. A couple looked like veterans of other juvenile facilities and just looked ahead.

One of them turned and mouthed something at Miss Walker. Walker just leaned in and smirked slightly, mouthing something to the girl. That was when the girl lunged at her. Walker was shoved back against the fence. The girl went for her. That was her mistake. Walker kicked her in the stomach and then drew her black police club and began to hit her hard with it. The girl fell a moment later hard on the floor. She looked unconscious. Walker smirked down at her and then to the other inmates and said something Helga couldn't hear, even with the quiet inside the dorm after Walker's display. Some nodded, or looked away worried. The large guard just nodded and replaced her club, her hard eyes never leaving the new cherries as she did so. Then she looked down at the inmate and said something else, then kicked her once in the ribs before leaving.

After that came the sounds of clapping and cheering as the inmates made the new arrivals walk the gauntlet of thrown paper and tampons, cigarette smoke and spit in their faces. One girl with black hair (what was left of it) tried to run through and was tripped. Several girls kicked her till she got up and walked slower to her assigned room, crying as she did so. The others made their way quickly through the jeering and taunting long timers. After a minute of this, it was over.

Helga watched the whole thing looking very sickened. Miranda looked ill, apparently reliving the day she too had been one of the "new cherries." Trashmouth and PG just went back to what they had been doing, as if the whole thing was just another routine for them. It probably was. Helga doubted that she would ever think of that as routine.

She was just about to turn away, when she saw Walker gesture to Bowers and Pena. They came over obediently, like trained dogs and picked up the foolish inmate, who looked like she was out cold. They carried her out to of the dorm and the doors were again locked up.

"Where are they taking her?" Miranda asked, looking worried now.

"Probably down to the infirmary first, then off to the hole for a fabulous first night back," Trashmouth said, blowing out the last of the smoke and then putting out the cigarette on the table. "Any of you feel up for some checkers to pass the time?" Miranda nodded and PG went to fetch the board an pieces.

Helga looked up at the dorm, watching everyone else going about their usual business, as if nothing had happened at all. Just another typical day in Cherry Hell, with a small break in the routine, nothing more. She saw one of the new cherries, a fat blonde girl, crying in her room, being talked to by her new roommate, who seemed to be talking to her sympathetically. Helga snorted wondering how sympathetic the girl's roommate would be that night when the infamous "Cherry Picking" took place, as she guessed it might.

A moment later, the two dorm bosses and Miss Walker returned without the poor inmate. Helga watched them carefully. Walker looked out at the inmates and her gaze settled on someone on one of the second level rooms. She looked over at Bowers, who meet her gaze and nodded. Then the guard left, smirking slightly to herself.

Helga had a bad feeling that something bad was about to happen. She whispered to Trashmouth, "Did you see that?" To her surprise, Trashmouth nodded and continued to play against Miranda.

She watched as both inmates casually made their way up the metal stairs to the upper rooms and walked along to a room near the front. Pena went inside and shut the door while Bowers stood outside and leaned against the rail with her back to the door. Bowers looked down at all of them and then her gaze meet Helga's. The two of them just locked gazes for a moment, before Bowers smirked darkly and turned in time to see Pena emerge from the room, looking very flustered but somehow pleased with herself. Both of them smirked, nodded and began to walk back to the stairs.

Just as Helga was about to look away back to the game, the door that Pena emerged from opened wide and a skinny, pale blonde inmate with very fair skin emerged, holding something in her hand that flashed a moment in the lights before she lunged, with a terrible shriek at the two of them. She slashed in the air in front of them. Helga realized just then that she must have a knife.

The game stopped, as did most of the activity in the dorm at the sight on the upper level. Only the guard at the desk seemed unaware of things, she had her nose in a magazine. PG stood up, as did Miranda and Trashmouth. Helga rose also, looking on anxiously.

The blonde girl lunged, stretching her right arm out a big too far. That would be her fatal flaw. Pena grabbed her arm, and Bowers hit her in the face. The girl yelled out in pain and rage, then made a desperate lunge at her tormentors. Bowers grabbed her, lifted her easily up and slung her over the rail. The girl's yells of rage turned into a scream of utter horror that lasted about a second before she hit the ground with an awful thud.

Helga's eyes widened in horror and then she suddenly felt a serious need to use the bathroom. Her insides turned to ice instantly. Miranda cried out and turned her head quickly covering her face in Helga's chest. She put a protective arm around Miranda, holding her close as much for her own foolish sense of comfort as Miranda's. PG looked ready to throw up and Trashmouth stood there in shock, her mouth wide open and her face so pale, her freckles stood out a lot more.

Many inmates rushed over to the girl and the guard finally clued in that something was wrong and put down the magazine. She shouted into her walkie talkie and opened the doors. Then she rushed out and ran over, shoving an inmate aside. Helga couldn't see through the crowd of girls, except for the fallen girl's shoes. They hadn't moved.

'_Oh my God,' _Helga thought feeling her blood run cold and her knees giving way. It was only the support of the now sobbing Miranda that kept Helga on her feet. She looked up at Bowers and Pena, who were walking down the steps toward the crowd, as if they were simply just innocent bystanders rather than participants in the whole ordeal.

Several guards entered the room. One of them was Miss Walker, who shouted out, "Clear the way! Now!" The inmates parted quickly and that gave Helga the view she'd been looking for. She gasped at the sight and looked away sickened, closing her eyes tightly as if to try vainly to erase the image that she saw.

The girl was dead, laying with her head in a pool of dark red blood, her eyes were halfway open and her neck and left leg were twisted at impossible angles.

Helga somehow managed not to pass out, but she began to tremble and hugged Miranda tighter. Trashmouth muttered, "Damn it."

When Helga looked up once more, the guards were waving them all off, and Miss Walker shouted out, "Back to your rooms! Do it now!" Nobody argued, and did as they were told. PG took Miranda by the arm and led her away helping her back to her own room. Helga followed Trashmouth, not looking back at the terrible sight.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw The Bear frowning at Bowers and Pena. The latter two were putting on a very good acting job of concern and innocence. Helga then saw Miss Walker standing nearby, looking over where the body must have been, a strange look on her face.

Helga almost stopped in her tracks at the realization that hit her like a ton of bricks. That had been no accident, or even manslaughter from a fight. That had been murder!

She turned her head to look at Bowers and Pena once more. Just before the two of them entered their own room, Bowers looked over at Helga and for the second time their eyes meet. She gave Helga a very evil smirk and a wink then entered her room. The smirk was a simple message that Helga read all too well: _That could have been you, blondie._

Up until now, Helga thought she understood what fear was. Now she realized that she was way off the mark.

_**To Be Continued . . . **_

_Sorry about the hiatus on the update for this story, been busy with other things and a small case of writer's block on top of that. But don't worry, this story is back in action and now a new cliffhanger to keep you guessing what will come next. Stay tuned. Read and Review! -D.R. _


	38. Part 37: The Code Of Silence

**Part Thirty-Seven: The Code Of Silence**

Helga and Trashmouth sat in their dorm room, Helga on her bunk and Trashmouth in the chair at the desk. Both of them were quiet as they listened to the sounds of the guards and other official people out in the dorm cleaning up the crime scene and dealing with the remains of the unfortunate girl. Helga had seen enough movies to know that there is an investigation and that the victim was placed in a black body bag and rolled out on a gurney to a waiting ambulance, or hearse. It was so quiet that she could hear the official sounding voices, including Miss. Harris and Miss Walker, and several others, including a couple of male voices.

She didn't know if any of the other inmates were watching from the wire-covered windows of their own rooms and Helga honestly couldn't have cared less if they were. Her mind was in a turmoil over the murder that she'd just witnessed. It wasn't anything like a movie, or a television series at all. This was real life and the blood was real. The person the blood came from would not get up and be in another series or movie. She had been a girl, just like her, and she was dead.

Helga still felt as if her stomach were empty. She felt completely drained of energy and sick inside. Her mind continued to go over the details. Bowers tossing the girl over the rail like she was nothing but a sack of dirty laundry, the last scream that the girl made before the sickening thud of her body hitting the floor cut it off.

She looked over at Trashmouth and saw, to her astonishment, that she was just sitting there, looking through a comic book she had as if all of this was just any other day. She was even humming a little to herself. Helga felt suddenly angry at her roommate. She remembered how the girl spoke casually of her former roommate's death when she first got assigned here.

"Criminy, how can you just sit there and act like nothing happened?" Helga asked, knowing she sounded harsh, but not caring at all.

Trashmouth put the comic book down and turned to look at her, her mouth set in a frown of annoyance. "What do you want me to do? Huh? Tell me?"

Helga frowned and said, "Try acting like you at least care about what happened!"

"You mean, lay on my bunk and cry about something bad happening in here? Wake up, Pataki, you're in Cherry Hell, in case you've forgotten! Almost everyone in here was put here because they did something just as bad on the outside!"

Trashmouth looked at the door and continued, "Girls who did those bad things in the real world are certainly going to be doing the same things in here. Only in here it's way worse, because they are locked in with other girls who did the same things they did, or worse. What did you expect to happen, several really bad slaps in the shower, a few beatings?" She looked at Helga's bandaged pinky as she said that. Helga blinked and held it protectively.

"Those things were nothing compared to what else can happen to you in here. Some older girls, hell, even the ones in this dorm will do much worse than just break your finger. A month ago a girl got stabbed in the lunch line in the mess hall in the neck with a screwdriver just because she smarted off to this one girl. Some inmates get so scared they commit suicide or get themselves hurt to be transferred out of this place. Once, a girl got on the roof and tried to jump off. She broke both of her legs and her back and she ended up paralyzed from the neck down." Trashmouth looked right at her. "This isn't a fairy-tale world, princess, and you better get used to it."

Helga looked thoughtful and lowered her eyes to the dirty cement floor and sighed. "She was a girl, just like me, and she was killed right in front of me. I've never seen anyone die before. How am I supposed to forget that?"

Trashmouth didn't seem to be angry now when Helga looked up at her. She even seemed to look a little gently at her. Then she answered, "Do what I do, be thankful that it wasn't you. That's all you can do when you've been inside as long as I have and seen all that I've seen." She looked down herself as she said that.

Helga bit her lip a moment then she said, "To be honest, I hope that I'm not here long enough to be like you. No offense."

The red haired inmate looked up at her and smiled weakly. "None taken, and I hope not either. You don't deserve to be in here, Pataki."

Those words made Helga blink. "Wait a minute, you – you believe me? That I'm innocent?"

Trashmouth nodded and said, "It's possible you could have done it and not really thought about the consequences of those actions afterwards, and what it would have meant if someone got hurt. But I can see how much all this upsets you. There's no way you would have wanted to hurt anyone, no matter how tough you act on the outside. You ain't got it in you. I've spent the last year in here with real badasses and you ain't one of them."

Helga somehow felt a whole lot better. The images of the murder were still running wild though her mind, but the fact that someone else now believed in her innocence took away that anxious knot in her stomach. "Thanks, Shannon," she said, using her roommates real name.

Trashmouth smiled only a little and said, "Hey, no problem, Helga."

A moment later, the sounds of footsteps and voices increased a little. The authority figures outside were leaving. They'd been out there for what seemed like an hour or more.

"Now what happens?" Helga asked.

Trashmouth sighed and said, "Now comes the interrogations. Every one of us will be taken out of the room and questioned by some guards and official people. They'll ask where we were and what we saw at the time." Now the inmate looked at Helga and there was some urgency in her voice. "No matter what, you can't tell them what you saw."

Helga blinked and looked a little worried, "Why not? I mean, don't we have to be truthful about it? I mean, what if they know we're lying and . . ."

"And what?" Trashmouth said, looking at her carefully. "Put us in the hole? Give us more time on our sentence? Take away our yard time? That's all they can do. In fact, they will probably know we're not saying the whole truth, but they can't really prove it and they won't do anything to us individually."

"But what about the . . ."

"Helga, listen to me!" Trashmouth said, in a quiet but firm tone of voice. Her face never looked more serious. "If you never take any advice I offer you while you're here, take this, for your own sake. You _can't_ snitch on Bowers and Pena."

Helga looked a little insulted, "Look, I am not a little kid, I know not to be a snitch."

"Yeah, in grade school," Trashmouth said derisively and waved her hand. "That's nothing out there. You snitch there and you lose all of your friends and get picked on. You snitch, or let something slip in here, and your life could very well be worth less than a pack of cigarettes. In here, there is an unspoken code among all us inmates. You never rat out anyone to the screws. If you do, then you're life is over. You'd be completely cut off from any real human contact, aside from becoming a human toilet."

She sat down next to Helga and looked at her, "No matter what, do not tell them you saw what happened. You were watching us play checkers and heard the scream. When you looked up, it was over. That's all you saw, you got it?"

Helga nodded and said, "Yeah, I understand, really I do."

Trashmouth looked into her eyes a moment and then nodded. "I really hope so, Helga. I don't want to have to beat up my roommate everyday." She offered a weak smile and patted her arm. Helga didn't know if she was kidding, and wasn't too sure she wanted to find out.

"What about Miranda? She needs to know about this," Helga said, worried about her fellow inmate and friend.

"Don't worry about it, her roommate would have given her the same speech," Trashmouth told her. "Besides, Riley is not too smart about some things, but I think she's picking things up very quickly now." Helga nodded in agreement, at the same time, hoping that Trashmouth was right about that.

Ten minutes later, the voice of Miss Walker came over the intercom: _"All inmates line up in the main dorm."_

The inmates did as they were told, all lining up into two facing lines the way they normally would for counts.Bowers and Pena were both shoving them into line and looking at them menacingly as they did so.

Helga felt Trashmouth elbow her. She turned and her dorm mate nodded over toward the office fence where the supervisor, Miss Harris and about four other guards, including Miss Walker, were standing. Dr. Lang was standing next to the door to the office looking out at them. Helga noticed that she had this far away look in her eyes, like a lot was on her mind.

When she felt Bowers shove her, she heard her whisper harshly, "Better keep your mouth shut, Blondie." Then she went on without looking back at her. Pena though gave her a stony look as she passed.

A moment later, Miss Harris began to walk down the two lines of inmates looking at all of them from her left, then her right. Her high heels clicked against the floor. She stopped in the middle between the rows and spoke.

"Today's incident will be investigated. One way, or the other, I intend to get to the bottom of this. All of you will wait here until you are called in for questioning. Until this matter is resolved, there will be no more yard time outside." There were a few groans over this before Miss Harris turned back to the gate and went back through and out of the dorm.

Over the next four hours, in groups of five at a time, the inmates of Dorm C were taken away to be questioned.

While they waited, most of the older inmates simply resumed the activities that they were doing before the incident took place. Helga, Miranda, PG, and Trashmouth all went back to playing chess at first, then they switched to poker for a while. The whole time, Helga kept replaying the incident in her mind. The scream of the girl as she fell and then the sickening thump when she landed kept invading her mind at off times, making it very hard to concentrate on the game. She also kept glancing over at the place where the girl hit the floor, which was now cleaned up and looked as if nothing at all had even happened there. Then her eyes would move over to where Bowers and Pena were, both of whom were standing in the doorway just outside of their room on the lower level and smoking cigarettes calmly, as if neither of them had a care in the world. Helga felt very cold deep inside and tried to focus on the game again.

Finally after what seemed like forever, Miss Walker came into the dorm and called out five names; "O'Feir! Pataki! Sanchez! Loomis! Forrester! Front and center, now!"

Trashmouth stood and gave a mock salute in Miss Walker's direction and then nodded to Helga direction. Helga nodded and the two of them joined three of the new cherries at the front of the dorm. Walker looked down at all of them menacingly and said to them, "This way ladies." Then she led them out of the dorm where another guard waited and led them down the hallway and then to stop just outside the classroom where they had to go every afternoon.

"O'Feir, you go in first," Walker said gruffly to Trashmouth, who then gave Helga a wink and went inside. Walker stood in front of the classroom door and shut it. "The rest of you sit down, back against the wall and keep quiet." Helga sat down beside the other inmates and pulled her knees up wrapping her arms around her legs. She only looked up once at the doorway to see Walker stare down at her in her flat, unmoving way. She quickly lowered her eyes and didn't look up again.

After what seemed like about ten minutes, the door opened and Trashmouth came back out not smiling, or saying anything as she sat down beside Helga.

Miss Foster's voice came from inside the classroom, "Send in Pataki next, Miss Walker." "Get moving, Pataki, let's go," Walker prompted. Helga looked up, and then got to her feet brushing off her backside and walked into the classroom. The door shut behind her.

Inside Miss Foster, Miss Harris the supervisor, and Dr. Lang were all waiting by the fence-covered classroom windows. Outside it was gray and gloomy still. Miss Harris adjusted her glasses and then motioned to the desks. "Have a seat, Miss Pataki," she said, unsmiling. Her and the other Cherry Hill personal looked as if they were going through a rough time.

'_Well join the club,' _Helga thought to herself as she sat in the first desk in the middle row. She looked up at the administrators, all three of whom had different facial expressions. Miss Harris was giving her a somewhat tired look, that seemed to suggest she was expecting to hear another bullshit story. Miss Foster was giving her a penetrating look that seemed to be intended to be intimidating, while near the back, Dr. Lang was giving Helga a look that seemed to be pleading with her to make the right decision and to tell them what she knew.

Miss Harris sat on the top of the teacher's desk, looking down at Helga impatiently. "Pataki, if you know anything at all about what happened, you are obligated to tell us."

Helga took a deep breath and then let out a sigh, "I don't know anything about it."

"Sure you do," Miss Foster said speaking up and frowning at Helga. "You couldn't help but see it. A girl falling from the upper level, hitting the ground. Don't tell me you didn't look to see who was standing up there with her."

The description of the unfortunate inmate falling to her death recalled the vivid memory of the incident all to well in her mind. Helga blinked and looked down at the graffiti covering the top of the desk. She tried to concentrate on the remarks and crude drawings carved into the wood and highlighted with pencil led or pen ink, and not on the terrible memory.

Helga replied, after another moment, "No ma'am, I didn't see anything that happened. I was playing cards with Trashmouth and Miranda when it happened. I saw her afterwards . . . it was terrible." She didn't have to lie about the last words at all. She looked down at her shaking hands on top of the desk.

Dr. Lang walked over and stood beside her, looking down at her in a compassionate sort-of way and put a hand on her shoulder. "If you know anything at all about what happened out there, you need to talk about it. It would help you feel better in the long run, trust me on this." Helga looked up at her and Dr. Lang continued, "Look, we need to know if what happened was an accident, or deliberate. There is a girl laying dead on her way to the morgue. Her family will be terribly broken up over it. Do you understand? They deserve to know what happened to their daughter, or sister."

Helga really pondered those words carefully. Parents who would be heartbroken to hear about their child's death. A sibling, or two, who won't ever see their older (or younger) sister ever again. She blinked a few times. Her own family was not much to boast about, but she did remember how they were the day she disappeared for a few hours last Thanksgiving and how happy they were (even if only briefly) when she reappeared later on. What if she hadn't come back, or something bad had happened to her? No matter how much her family annoyed her, she knew she would not want to be responsible for that sort of grief.

This train of thought was abruptly broken by Miss Foster, who blurted out, "What if it had been you, Pataki?" Dr. Lang looked up at her and blinked, biting her lip slightly, as if Miss Foster had messed up in some way.

Indeed she did exactly that. Trashmouth's advice about not talking came back to her in full force. She remembered the way Bowers looked at her before and her insides turned to jelly again. That could very well happen to her if she told on them and Helga knew it.

"I didn't see it happen," Helga said again, not really looking at them and biting her lip.

Miss Harris, knowing that the opportunity to get Helga to talk had just slipped away, made one more desperate bid to recover the situation. "Pataki, if you know anything more about what happened in there, it may go well on your record. It might even make some impression on the judge when your case goes back to court. It might even take some time off your sentence." She let the bait dangle there.

Helga however wasn't fooled. She knew it was a total lie, and even if she did believe it, she would not survive in this place long enough to go back to court. She knew it now all too well.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't help you." Helga crossed her arms and sighed not meeting any of them in the eyes.

Miss Harris frowned and said, "Very well, you may go wait outside."

Helga stood and went to the door, her stomach felt upset and she felt as if she were going to throw up, but managed to hold it in. She opened the door and behind her, Miss Harris called out to Miss Walker, "Send in the next one!" Helga didn't looked at Walker either, she just went over to where Trashmouth sat against the wall and took a seat on the cold concrete floor beside her, resting her back against the wall.

Trashmouth meet her eye a moment later and gave her a questioning look. Helga just sighed and let out a small nod. Trashmouth didn't respond, but simply looked back down and then rested her head on her knees. Helga brought her legs up and wrapped her thin arms around them, doing the same. She closed her eyes and heard the door close again.

They stayed there like that for about thirty minutes till all of their group were questioned. Then they were led by Miss Walker back to Dorm C and dismissed to their bunks. The next group went out a moment later.

This process was repeated all day, but ultimately nothing more happened. Around seven that evening they were led to the Mess Hall where they were served dinner (or as Trashmouth called it, "kennel chow"). Everyone was talking loudly again, and everything was once again routine, as if nothing at all had happened, at least on the outside.

Nothing more was heard of the incident in Dorm C.

_**To Be Continued . . .**_

_Sorry for the long wait, bad case of Writer's Block...you could say a whole wall of Writer's Block! The next chapter you won't have to wait too long for, and I promise some more excitement. What will happen to Helga and the other's next? Stay turned and see. Read and Review! -D.R._


	39. Chapter 38: The Longest Football Game

_Sorry about the small hiatus, but guess what guys and gals . . . . this story is ba-ack! Bwhahaha! LOL, anyhow lets get on with this story shall we? -D.R._

**Part Thirty-Eight: The Longest Football Game**

Helga woke up with a small shriek of terror escaping her lips. She sat up quickly, now wide awake and sweating profusely. Her tank top was soaked through with preparation. She groaned and covered her face with her hands, shaking with anxiety.

"Another bad one, huh?" Trashmouth's sleep voice asked from the bunk above her.

Indeed it had been. In Helga's dream, she'd been the girl being thrown over the railing onto the hard concrete floor below, all the while hearing Bower's mocking laughter. It was the fifth such dream she'd had about the incident.

"Criminy," Helga muttered softly to herself. Then aloud she said, "Yeah, it was. I feel like I'm losing my mind in this damn place."

"Well, if you do, they'll ship you upstate to Tredmore Girls Home." Her roommate said, sounding almost like she was simply stating fact. Maybe she had been on the first part, but then she added, "At least you'll get better food there than the kennel chow that Sutherland dishes out."

Helga didn't smile even a little as she lay back on her bunk and sighed. "Sorry if I woke you."

There was a yawn and Trashmouth said, "It's alright, Pataki. Between you and The Screamer, I've sort of gotten used to three hours of honest shut-eye." Then her bunkmate's head appeared over the side, her red-hair hanging down around her freckled face. "You sure you don't want to go talk to Doc Lang about all this?"

"No thanks," Helga said, now sounding a little bitter. She could still remember Dr. Lang's attitude during their first visit and could tell that the prison psychologist cared nothing for bullies. She knew somehow she could expect little sympathy from her. _'To bad Doctor Bliss isn't here,' _Helga thought to herself, actually finding that she missed her almost as much as she missed Arnold.

Her eyes looked up briefly at the photo of Arnold smiling down at her between the springs of her mattress, like a football-headed angel watching over her. She was so sad that she couldn't even look at it and turned on her side looking toward Trashmouth's head. "I think I'm going to be up for awhile."

Trashmouth looked at her a moment and then said, "Okay, but if you need someone to talk to, I'm here." Her head disappeared again.

Helga nodded a little unsmiling, though she did feel grateful to Trashmouth. "Thanks." She whispered and lay on her back with her hands behind her head, looking up at Arnold's photo. She tried to focus on the things Arnold said to her the last time they saw one another. The one thing that came to mind was what he was trying to say at that last minute. The memory was as clear to her as the memory of the incident: _"Well, that is, I – well, I miss you so much, Helga. I mean, I really miss you. I really, really miss you . . . that is, I, well, I miss you so much, in fact, that I think I – well, that I . . ."_ His face had a look on it that seemed so wistful and wanting that Helga dared believe that her beloved Arnold has just been a few seconds away from telling her that he shared her feelings and loved her as much as she loved him.

She looked up at his picture and reached up tracing the outline of his hair with a finger. "Why the hell can't I have a dream about that?" Helga whispered to the picture above her. Then she smirked and added, "Or even a nice little make-out session with you?"

"I'm not that easy, Pataki," Trashmouth muttered above her with an amused voice.

Helga made a face and said, "Oh kiss my butt."

"You wish, you have to buy me dinner and take me to a movie first."

Helga kicked the bunk above her and Trashmouth said, "I see you're into playing rough too."

Now Helga did smile and say, "You're too crazy for me, Trashmouth."

"Don't I know it, besides your boyfriend might not like the competition," Trashmouth said again sounding amused.

Helga sighed and said, "He's not my boyfriend." She had to listen to Trashmouth tease her about that everyday, and Helga always responded the same way, though in her mind she added the same thing every time. This time she whispered the words as she looked up at Arnold's picture. "Though I wish he were."

"Aww, so I'm not the first in your heart, I'm hurt," Trashmouth continued to tease.

"You're not my type anyhow," Helga teased back. "I don't care much for red-heads with freckles."

"Oh really?" Trashmouth said, doing a good job of trying to sound hurt. "Well, I don't care much for blondes either. So there." Then came the unmistakable sound of a raspberry being blown. Helga chuckled a little then. The exchange did make her feel a little better, even though she didn't get anymore sleep before the first bell rang half an hour later.

It had been almost a week since the terrible incident and outwardly everything seemed normal in Dorm C. Everybody went back to their usual routines, going for breakfast in the mornings, doing their work assignments and exercises. Spending their evenings with their usual pursuits, or keeping to themselves. It was the same old everyday routine that made the days seem all the longer on the inside. On the inside, every inmate continued to struggle with their own inner demons in their own ways.

Helga was no exception to this rule. During the day she managed to carry on with her usual routine, which also had the added bonus of staying out of the way of Bowers and Pena, and out of the notice of Miss Walker, though it was hard considering that all of them were in charged over her in some way. Miss Walker hadn't done anything to her since sending her to The Hole, aside from the usual dark looks her way and nasty smirks when she assigned Bowers and Pena to give her and a few others dirty jobs such as the now infamous "shit house patrol" and cleaning out storerooms that had rat-droppings all over the floors by hand without gloves.

Bowers and Pena, on the other hand, were harder to get away from since they supervised a lot of her usual work. Most of the time they simply laughed behind her back while she did particularly nasty jobs. But sometimes they used her as their personal punching bag. They would grab her and hold her down while the rest of their gang pulled her shirt up and slapped her stomach hard. Other times they would take turns hitting her upper arms till they were black and blue. One time, Bowers gave Helga a swirly in a dirty toilet, though thankfully the water was clean itself.

Helga was not at the point where any loud noise would make her jump. She was always constantly looking over her shoulder, afraid to let her guard down for even an instant during the day, least she fall victim to a sneak attack she couldn't avoid.

It was only at night that she could put away all of her worries and concentrate on her thoughts of Arnold. Daydreams of him coming to take her away from this place and off somewhere far away from Cherry Hell, where they could be alone to express their deepest feelings for one another.

However, when Helga closed her eyes, the nightmares would come back. Terrible, haunting dreams of her being hurt badly, or killed at the hands of Bowers and her gang. She would always wake up in a cold sweat, haunted by the visions in her mind and unable to get back to sleep.

Helga could feel her spirit being slowly eaten away by this terrible place. She had only been there for about seventeen days, just over two weeks; yet it felt like she'd been inside for two months. She would sometimes see inmates break down and sob, or simply become withdrawn and shut out everything around them. Some days Helga felt as if she should do the same thing, but even at her lowest points (and there were more than a few here in Cherry Hell) she would always draw strength on her friends belief in her innocence, especially Arnold.

Also, Helga did have her friendship with Trashmouth, Miranda, and PG to keep her from becoming totally despondent. She also had to remain strong for Miranda, who's constant resemblance to Phoebe always prompted Helga to stand by her and help keep her spirits high. Helga knew that Trashmouth and PG would do their best to help her survive here, but Helga felt it was her own duty to watch over a girl she had come to consider a kindred spirit given their mutual innocence.

Despite those few breaks in the gloom, life for Helga was a simple routine that seemed to make days last forever. Time on the inside was slow torture and slowly, but surely, Helga could feel herself slipping into an abyss that threatened to overwhelm her. She knew she had to do something to fight back against this injustice her life became, even if it was just a small gesture.

The following Saturday morning, the inmates of Dorm C were brought back to their dorms after morning run and breakfast to be counted again. This time, instead of being given their work assignments, they were counted and then Miss Walker came down between the lines of the two girls, flanked by a couple of other guards. Bowers and Pena stood at the front behind the guards, both of them smirking for some reason. Helga saw those smirks and right away knew that something was coming that wouldn't be any good.

Walker paused in the middle and looked at all of them. She had a terrible smirk on her face as she addressed all of them.

"Good morning, _ladies_," she began, somehow turning the word ladies into a slight curse. "Due to the recent unfortunate incident regarding one of our very own, it's come to the attention of our dear resident councilor, Dr. Lang, that many of you may be going through depression, or some sort-of 'low period'." Her mouth twisted as she said them, making Helga believe that she could of cared less if they were in fact depressed.

She continued, "Because of this, Dr. Lang went to the administration and suggested that a slight break in the routine is needed to help "elevate stress" (she made quotations with her fingers the way Mr. Simmons would have, except unlike him, Walker's version was more sarcastic) and bring things back to normal around here. So, Miss Harris and myself suggested some sort of yard activity for the day may be just what the doctor asked for. Because of this, I have the_ pleasure_ (again saying it and not sounding like she meant it) to announce to you that we will be forgoing the usual daily chores and having a mandatory yard time activity."

At those words, every inmate erupted into cheers and shouts of joy. Helga couldn't help but join in. It was almost like having a whole day of recess.

At least it did until Walker blew her silver whistle and shouted, "Okay, ladies, settle down!" Then when it was quiet again she went on. "It was left up to me to decide just what sort-of yard activity would be best suited for all of you." Now she smiled in that cold, cruel way again. "With Miss Harris' approval, I have come up with the perfect way to break the routine."

With that Miss Walker turned to the guard on the left side of her, who brought something out from under her arm. It was a football. She handed it to Walker, who held it up a little and smirked at the two rows of inmates before her. "We're going to have ourselves a little football game. Two teams to play against each other. First team to get the limit wins the grand prize, three days of free time, courtesy of myself and our administration."

Helga blinked, that almost seemed too good to be true. Three days of free time and no more cleaning, or anything? A part of Helga knew there had to be a catch to this.

Miss Walker proved Helga's instincts were not faulty in the next moment. "All those who do not participate will sit on the sidelines and watch the game, and may take over for someone who is taken out of the game. Anyone who chooses not the participate actively in the game will go back to work assignments starting tomorrow along with those on the losing team." Then she smirked and said, "The teams will be chosen by me, of course. All those who wish to participate will sign up at the front desk before yard time right after lunch and work details." She then turned to look at the guards and nodded. They left a moment later back into the office.

Miranda was the first one of them to speak. "I don't know about this, I mean, _football_? You can get hurt badly playing that.

Helga shrugged, "I played football all the time back in my neighborhood with my classmates and friends. It's not so bad."

PG smiled a bit grimly, "Yeah, well I doubt that any of your friends made any sort of effort to try and beat your brains in while you were playing."

Helga had to admit that was the case. Arnold and the others often tried to be careful even when they tackled, despite the occasional accident where someone sprained an ankle, or skinned an elbow. "I played against fifth grader boys also. They were rough too." Which was true enough, considering that Wolfgang and his gang didn't care if they hurt a scrawny forth grader or not.

Miranda seemed impressed by this. "You played football against fifth grade boys? Wow!"

Trashmouth stood up and said, "Well, I don't know about you ladies, but if there's a chance that it will keep me out of the laundry for a couple of days, then I'll let myself get pounded flat a few times." With those words she made the whole thing seem like a simple day out on the playground.

Helga's mind was made up. Contact sports often helped her relieve some stress and she had plenty of it, and then some, here in Dorm C. She stood and followed her roommate to the office up front. Miranda and PG followed also a moment later. They all signed their names on he sign-up sheet and went back to their rooms to dress out in their sweats.

Half an hour later the inmates of Dorm C were sitting on the wooden bleachers waiting to play. It was somewhere in the upper forties outside and the ground on the soccer field was muddy and had several large puddles in it. It had been raining for the last few days and the sky outside was gray and dreary, as if it were about to rain. A slight cold wind blew, making all of the inmates shiver a little.

Miss Walker came over, along with the two guards from before. One of them was Miss Foster and Helga was at least a little grateful, since she proved to be slightly more fair than Walker. Foster had a box in her hands.

Miss Walker handed the ball to Miss Foster and then smiled. "Okay ladies, when I call out your names, you will come out and take your place on the teams." She looked at the clipboard in her other arm. "Representing the red team . . ." She called out a list of about twenty girls, among which included Helga, Trashmouth, PG and Miranda, along with several other new Cherries and some of the less than athletic looking inmates. They climbed down from the bleachers and stood out in the field, taking a red cloth from the box that Miss Foster had and tying it around their upper arms.

Now Walker smirked and said, "Now, representing the blue team . . ." She called out a list of only about twelve much larger inmates, which included Bowers, Pena, and their gang, along with some other large, mean-looking girls.

Helga blinked and seeing this and then frowned at Miss Walker. "That bitch set this up!"

"You surprised, Pataki?" PG asked, looking at her.

Helga supposed she shouldn't be by this turn of events. Whatever good intentions that Doctor Lang had for relieving their stresses, Walker turned into another of her object lessons. At the very least she expected Miss Foster to say something. However again she was disappointed. Foster did give Walker a look that Helga read to be one of disapproval, but did nothing to change the situation.

"W-w-what kind of a game is this anyway?" Miranda said, sounding as nervous as Helga felt in her stomach.

"This ain't a game, kid," one of their fellow Red Team players said wearily. "This is a slaughter."

"Great, we're going to get out butts kicked for nothing, while those bullies get three days off to brag about it?!" Helga said voicing the outrage she felt. She knew that stomping over and confronting Walker would not only not get her anywhere, but end up resulting in some serious consequences for her, not the least of which would be twenty-four more hours in The Hole.

For a moment though, Helga was tempted to take that, if it meant getting one good swing at the guard, but then something else occurred to her. What if they _didn't_ lose like Walker wanted? What if somehow they managed to pull this off? She looked over at the muddy field. The larger girls would also probably be a bit clumsier on the slippery terrain, while smaller girls would have a slight advantage. It was possible.

"Okay, listen up!" Helga said, sounding a bit like the old Helga back in Gerald Field taking charge and rallying her team before the game. "Pay attention! I think there may be a way we can win this game!"

"Hey, who died and put you in charge, blondie?" One of the inmates snarled at her. Another grumbled and added, "Shut up you little Cherry!"

Another inmate, who was thin and had short yellow hair and a face that looked like someone punched it more than a few times said, "Hey, Pataki here is the Bear Killer, remember?" yet another inmate said, "That's right, she went toe to toe with The Bear and survived. Let's listen to her."

Helga blinked. _'Bear Killer? Me?!' _She looked around and saw that The Bear was still sitting with several other girls who decided not to volunteer for the game. The large inmate sat by herself over near the front left end of the benches, just watching things unfold. Her rough face was set. Nobody sat too close to her and she seemed to prefer it that way. Helga was suddenly glad that The Bear choose to sit this game out instead of joining up with Bowers and Pena, who already had more than their share of thugs and bullies on their team.

Trashmouth was already singing Helga's praises to the rest of the team. "Pataki here says she played lot football against older kids. Boys mostly. I say she should be our quarterback!"

"Huh? Wait! Me quarterback?!" Helga was a bit surprised, and slightly anxious over that.

One by one the other girls agreed. One was honest enough to say why: "Better her than me! The quarterback will be the one they'll try to hit the most!"

Miss Walker strutted to the center of the field smirking. "A couple of you take down the nets from the soccer goals!" Two of the inmates did so leaving the metal frames to serve as the goal posts.

"OK ladies, here's what we will be doing," Walker said, looking at both groups of inmates. "The rules will be like this. For every possession, there will be five downs. On the fifth down you get to punt away, or try to get a field goal. First team to score twenty-eight, or more points wins the game. Any questions?" There were none coming. "Very well then, team captains step forward and call the toss." Helga stepped forward and so did Bowers, who smirked down at her.

"You're never going to last the whole game, Pataki." The bully said, glaring down at Helga.

Helga looked up at her, meeting her glare with one of her own, "Bring it on, Bowers."

"Call it, Bowers," Walker said tossing a quarter in the air.

"Heads!"

The coin landed in Walker's open hand. It was indeed heads.

"Ball goes to Blue Team. Red team will kick off!" Walker said then blew her shrill whistle.

The inmates on the bleachers, as well as some of the others from another dorm who were having yard time cheered both teams on as they lined up on opposing ends of the field.

Helga looked around and said, "Who here can kick pretty far?" She was surprised when Miranda walked forward and blushed a little embarrassed. "You?"

"I used to play soccer," Miranda admitted smiling a little.

"That'll do," Helga said placing the ball on the ground and then kneeling down in the mud to hold it. "Kick it as far as you can." In a way, Helga was glad that Miranda had a position that kept her out of harms way for the most part. The girl was far too small and delicate to play a sport this rough.

There was a long pause then Helga looked at Miranda - who looked nervous - and nodded to her. Miranda ran and kicked the football hard, though she slipped in the mud a moment later because she was off balance to the laugher of many, including Walker.

The football soared across the field._ 'Wow, that girl wasn't kidding, she really _can_ kick!'_ Helga thought as she watched it land in the arms of Bowers, who grinned in a nasty way and began running at the Red Team flanked by her fellow bullies. All of them had bad intentions written all over their faces. They didn't disappoint. The moment any of them got in range, they didn't just block the defending team, they actually collided with them and tackled them into the mud hard.

Helga ran going straight for Bowers, only to be rammed in the left side hard by one of Bower's gang, who fell with all of her bulk onto Helga as she hit the mud face-first. Her clothes were soaked through and mud filled her mouth and nostrils as the bully shoved off and stood up. When Helga managed to look up through her mud-dripping bangs, she saw Bowers score on the drive easily and spike the ball with a smirk on her face. The inmates cheered her on as Walker blew her whistle.

The girls on the Red Team managed to somehow get to their feet again, all mud-covered and looking glum. Helga ran over to Trashmouth and asked her, "How high can you jump?"

The mud-covered redhead just grinned and said, "Pretty good, why?"

"Cause you're gonna block their extra point attempt, with my help." Helga said smiling at the look of surprise on Trashmouth's face.

When the teams lined up for the extra point attempt, Helga put all of the larger girls on the team in front as line backers. When they lined up, she could see how mis-matched the two teams were as most of the linebackers on the other team were huge and about a head taller than the girls on the Red Team. Helga stood beside Trashmouth and nodded.

"Hike!" They heard Bowers shout out and then get ready to kick the ball. The Blue Team's line backers slammed hard into the Red Team's, nearly knocking all of them down at once. They closed in on Helga and Trashmouth just as Bowers kicked the ball. At that instant, Helga shouted, "Now!" Trashmouth turned as Helga locked her fingers together and she stepped up. Helga then lifted Trashmouth as the smaller girl jumped in her hand. The added leverage was enough for the red-head to reach the ball and deflect it from it's perfect sail and away from the goal, even as the Blue Team's line backers slammed into Helga and tackled her into the mud again. Trashmouth landed on top of one of the larger Blue Team members smiling widely.

The inmates on the sidelines cheered again, amazed that the smaller team managed to block the field goal attempt. Walker looked at Helga and Trashmouth (who was being shoved by the girl she landed on) and frowned. Behind her on the bench, The Bear actually looked at Helga with a slightly amazed look.

Helga grinned at Trashmouth and hugged her. "That was great!" The other members of the team patted Trashmouth on the back. Helga smiled and said, "Ladies, it's our turn now!" Now there was some actual high spirits on the faces of the other girls as they got ready to receive the kickoff. Helga looked down the line on both sides. "Remember, we're smaller than them, but we're faster!"

"We better be," Trashmouth said, looking across at their opponents angry faces. Having been shown up by the smaller kids just then, the bullies would be out for revenge.

A moment later Bowers kicked off. The ball went right for Helga, who caught it and began to run, with the other Red Team members doing their best to trip the opposing team into the mud. The fact that most of them were smaller than the larger bullies did help to a degree in the muddy field. The odds were slightly even. Helga managed to make it mid-field before being roughly tackled from the side by Bowers herself, then piled on by several other larger kids. Helga felt bruised as she lay there in the cold mud. Bowers shoved her face in the mud. "You want more, Pataki? We'll give it to ya." She kicked Helga in the side one good time before getting into line with the rest of her team.

Helga got up slowly, went to her team's huddle and called out a play. "Trashmouth, go right, I'll pass it to you." They went into line and a moment later the ball was hiked to Helga. She barely managed to get hold of it, when five of the Blue Team's line backers broke through the smaller Red Team's line and slammed her hard into the mud. Helga managed to hold onto the ball somehow.

There were laughs and taunts from the sidelines and from the Blue Team. Helga growled and stood up. She went to the huddle again and saw the apologetic looks of the girls from the line. Helga sighed and said, "I know, don't sweat it. Just do the best you can and keep them off my back, OK?" They nodded. "OK, I'm going left this time, try and trip them up."

They lined up. Bowers pointed at Helga and said, "You've had it, Pataki! I'm coming for you!"

"Looks like you have an admirer, Pataki," Trashmouth said, keeping her eyes in front and grinning.

"HIKE!"

The ball came back to Helga who rushed to the left quickly and through a hole in the line caused by one of the Blue Team people being tripped into the mud. She leaped into it and managed to go forward another five yards before being slammed hard into the side by a large linebacker.

"Stay down, bitch!" The girl said to her in a sneering voice. It was Pena. She kicked Helga once before going back to the line.

Helga got back up slowly, feeling even more sore than before. Her back was throbbing where she'd been kicked. She wasn't about to let those bullies have the satisfaction. _'Helga G. Pataki doesn't lay down for anyone,' _she thought to herself.

On the next down she took the ball and managed to find another hole in the line and rush for another ten yards before being roughly tackled both from behind and in front by two large girls. Bowers ran over and stomped on Helga once. Seeing red, Helga jumped up and got in Bower's face. The older girl shoved her and said, "You got something to say to me, blondie?"

"Yeah, first down, bitch," Helga said, staring her right in the eyes. Nearby, Trashmouth grinned.

"You'll never last the game, Pataki," Bowers said glaring at her. Then she turned and went back to the line.

Helga looked over at the stands where the inmates watching were whooping and catcalling to them. The guards were into the game also. Miss Foster was actually watching the game with interest, while Walker had that same smirk on her face watching the smaller team get beaten up. Helga also saw that Dr. Lang was there also, standing next to the bleachers out of the way, but watching the game with a little trepidation.

"What now?" A girl on Helga's team asked. "This is our last try and I don't think you can get forward enough to get the goal."

Helga could see that she was right, but she wasn't about to let the other team stop her. "Okay then, we go for the field goal attempt. Miranda, kick off when the ball is hiked to Trashmouth. The rest of us will keep them off your back, ready?" They all nodded and then got into line.

"You're dead, Pataki!" Bowers said, looking very menacing.

"Just bring it, sweetie," Helga said sarcastically.

"Hey, I love that! I'm going to steal that one, Pataki!" Trashmouth said grinning.

"At least you're in the right place for stealing," another clown said down the line somewhere.

"Hey, I'm the one who does the gags on this team!"

"HIKE!" The ball went back to Trashmouth, who set it up to be kicked. Helga saw Bowers charging through the Blue Team line and right at her. Helga braced, then took the full blow of the larger girl's weight bringing both of them down. A moment later, she heard cheering through the ringing in her ears. She smiled knowing that Miranda got the three points.

The Blue Team glared at each other, even turning to shove one another over letting the smaller team score off of them. Apparently they never thought it could happen. From the sour pucker on Miss Walker's face, she apparently never thought so either. The Bear was also looking at Helga, but with a surprisingly malice free expression on her face. Dr. Lang smiled and clapped her hands, which also surprised Helga.

She started to stand back up, only to be shoved down again with a punch to the small of her back. Pain shot up her spine and she bit her lip when she fell over. Behind her, Bowers hissed, "Screw you, Pataki, that one was your last." The older girl even kicked some mud in her face before she stomped over to the sour-looking bullies.

Helga got up slowly and the pain in her lower back throbbed slightly, but she managed somehow to get on her feet and walk back over to her team. Miranda looked at her worried, but Helga smiled (she could taste the blood from her lip in her mouth along with some mud) and all of them got in line to kick off again.

When Miranda kicked off the ball again it went flying almost to the end of the field where a large girl fell over trying to get it. Bowers picked it up and charged almost halfway before about four of the smaller girls were able to bring her down. Helga was knocked over on her side by Pena, who elbowed her in the side of the face. "How you like that, _puta_?" She got up laughing and walked off. Helga let out a growl and got up. Her mouth was throbbing but she ignored it and got back in line.

This time it took a few downs before Bowers ran the ball into the goal. The mud was really helping to even things out. This time, the bullies managed to score the extra point also.

On the next possession, the ball was then kicked off and Helga caught it. She managed to get just over mid-field when one of the older girls elbowed her in the face hard and knocked her into the mud. Helga got back up. Unfortunately, a couple of her teammates didn't. One was limping and the other had a bad bruise on her face and looked dizzy. Both were helped off the field.

Walker looked back at the prisoners in the stands and asked, "Red Team needs some volunteers? Any takers?" Nobody moved. She smirked and looked back at Helga and the others. "You want to continue ladies?"

Helga looked at her team and then at Walker, "Just blow the whistle."

Walker smirked and said, "Have it your way." Then she blew the whistle and the game continued. The next two downs were the same, the smaller girls were held up by the larger ones and the ball didn't move more than a few feet forward. Every time Helga carried the ball herself and every time, Bowers would tackle her hard and a couple more of the larger girls would pile on.

"Stay down, unless you want to keep bleeding, bitch," Bowers hissed at Helga as she lay face first in the mud.

Helga got back up slowly. She was scraped in a few places, there was blood in her mouth from her busted lip and Helga could taste it mixed with the taste of mud. She was so caked with mud, she was barely recognizable.

Meanwhile, The Bear watched Helga get back up with a look of amazement on her face. Beside her, Dr. Lang was whispering, "Stay down. You're just getting hurt out there." The psychologist was actually worried about the Pataki girl. The Bear looked over at the doctor's slightly worried face a moment before looking back at the game.

The next play was coming up and Helga gathered the team up into a huddle. "OK, Trashmouth, I want you to get to the goal and I'll pass it to you, got it?" Trashmouth saluted, "Aye aye, captain." Helga looked at them, "The rest of you, keep them off my ass long enough. Trip them if you have to, got it?" At the chorus of "right" or "yes" and nods, they got into line.

Helga looked across at Bowers, who looked anxious to tackle her again. "Hike!" Helga got the ball and ran back while most of the team got between her and the bullies. There was lots of tripping, a huge tackle from one of the Blue Team girls, and at least one uppercut to the chin. A moment later, Bowers and one other huge girl broke through. Trashmouth was at the goal and Helga threw just a split second before she was tackled out of one of her shoes by Bowers and kicked in the gut by the other bully. The ball went right on target and Trashmouth grabbed it and fell backwards in the mud.

The cheers from the benches were wild. The Red Team scored their first goal. Walker looked like someone just placed a bucket of dog crap under her nose. She shouted at them to stop cheering so loud threatening to take them back to the dorm. Bowers was so furious she shoved a couple of her own teammates roughly, almost causing a fight.

Helga stood back up smiling and congratulating her two friends. Meanwhile, The Bear was still watching Helga carefully.

The score was now: Blue Team 13 and Red Team 9 (which became 10 when Miranda kicked the field goal perfectly). The inmates on both teams were cold. Mud covered their uniforms and coats and the wind was like ice. Yet both teams were plenty warm from all their running around and physical efforts.

Now though it began to rain slightly. Cold, light drizzle began to fall. Walker looked up a moment then called out, "Listen up, ladies. When I say it's time to end the game, we're going back inside. Whoever has the most points when that happens wins." The bullies all smirked, since they were ahead. The inmates on Helga's team all groaned. Helga felt a twinge of anger, knowing what Walker was doing. Dr. Lang was slightly happy that the game would be over soon, since it was getting too violent for her tastes. The Bear meanwhile looked over at Helga, biting her bottom lip thinking.

Helga knew that anytime now it could start to rain heavily and Walker would call off the rest of the game. They had to get the ball back and get another touchdown to win. A field goal now wouldn't do. She turned to Miranda. "Kick it off to Pena." Miranda blinked at her and then nodded, "Right."

A moment later, both teams lined up across the muddy field from one another. Helga could see her breath and see small ripples in puddles where rain fell. She looked up and down the line at her team. They all looked determined. Miranda looked less anxious now, Trashmouth was even smiling now, her red hair covered in mud. Next to her PG looked across the field ready for action. Helga smiled and leaned over, "Go for Pena's legs, let me do the rest, OK?" The smaller girl just nodded.

At Miss Walker's whistle, Miranda kicked the ball. It went high and right at Pena, who missed it, but picked it up and ran, with Bowers and the other bullies covering her sides. At about mid-field both teams collided with tackles and take-downs that would have been illegal in a real game of football, but in a game of juvie football there were few penalties. Mostly the younger girls managed to trip the larger bullies in the slippery mud. There was a hole wide open that Pena was about to run through. Helga and PG both charged right at her. Pena didn't even bother trying to dodge, but instead did what Helga predicted she'd try to do . . . try to go straight through. PG went right for her legs, while Helga leaped, flinging her whole body at Pena and the ball. When they collided, Pena fell backwards and Helga knocked the ball from her grip. Helga then made a leap for the ball and managed to land on it before about five of the bullies landed on her hard – one of these elbowed her hard in the small of the back while another stepped on her.

When Helga recovered the ball, the inmates on the sidelines cheered hard before Walker turned and glared at them. Dr. Lang looked at Helga laying there worried. "Don't get back up," she whispered, almost praying. "You've done enough, just stay down and relax." To her amazement Helga did indeed get back up slowly. She was obviously in pain, but she was still getting back up. Beside the psychiatrist The Bear watched this too, a small smile crossing her usually tough face.

Unfortunately, not all of the Red Team members got back up. One girl was favoring her left knee. Walker send two inmates to get her and take her to the infirmary. Then she looked at Helga, who watched her teammate being led away and smirked. "The Red Team needs a replacement player," Walker said turning back to the inmates. "Anyone want to take over? Anyone at all?" None of the inmates jumped up to do so right away. Walker didn't expect them to. She almost chuckled as she turned around and faced Helga and her teammates. "Guess this game is cancel-"

"I'll take her place," a voice spoke behind Walker deeply.

Walker blinked and she turned to face the person who spoke. Behind her on the field, Helga's eyes widened, and the rest of her team looked surprised. The bullies all looked at the new volunteer with various degrees of shock. Bowers' jaw dropped as she goggled at the new player. Even Dr. Lang looked a little surprised.

The Bear was standing up on the bleachers, looking at Helga in a determined sort-of way, not even looking at Miss Walker when she asked surprised, "Parker? You want to play?" The Bear didn't even look at her as she answered, "Yes, ma'am, I do." Her eyes stayed locked on Helga's.

Miss Walker frowned a little, "Well, it's about to come up a storm and I was just about to call the game off anyhow, so – "

"Miss Walker," Dr. Lang said, looking over at her. "The Blue Team started out the game, so I think it would be in the interest of fairness to let the Read Team have the last of it." Nearby, Miss Foster nodded and said, "You may as well let her play, Wilma. We can give them five more minutes, or so. Go ahead and let her play. This drive shouldn't take too much longer."

Confronted with the opinions of her peers, Walker had no choice. Frowning she looked at The Bear. "OK, get in there." She sounded angry as she said those words.

The Bear needed no more than that. She stepped down from the bleachers and stomped over toward Helga, who looked a little more than anxious._ 'Now what?' _Helga though anxiously. _'Is she coming over to beat me up during the game?'_ She looked over at Trashmouth worried. The redhead just looked at Helga dumbfounded and shrugged. The large girl stomped over and stood in front of Helga, who was holding her breath in anticipation of a fight.

The Bear looked down at her a moment, then asked her, "Where do you want me, captain?"

Helga felt her jaw drop and then she closed her mouth, realizing that she wasn't about to be pummeled. "Oh, well, um . . ." she looked at the line. "Want to be linebacker?"

The Bear smiled, her teeth were large and very white against her dark face. "That works for me."

As they lined up, Helga took quarterback position right behind The Bear. She was grateful that she now had someone bigger than her between Bowers and Pena and her. Despite this though, Helga was still dumbfounded, but decided not to press the point.

Bowers glared at The Bear. "You're going down, Bear. You should of stayed out of this."

"Don't sing it, just bring it, bitch," Bear said with her customary growling voice.

Helga grinned as she shouted, "Hike!"

Helga actually had time to go back and throw the ball to Trashmouth, who managed to make about ten yards before being tackled and piled on. This time though, Helga didn't get tackled as with all of the previous plays. The Bear actually blocked for her, violently tackling both Bowers and another girl into the mud on their backs, with her own heavy bulk on top of them. Both of them looked like disaster victims after the assault, Helga was happy to note. A smile crossed her face.

On the sidelines inmates cheered, Dr. Lang smiled, and Miss Walker let out a small growl of her own as she watched on.

On the next play, Helga hiked the ball and ran through the hole that Bear opened up with another violent tackle. She looked almost as if she would go all the way, but only managed eight yards before being hit hard in the right side and flipping over on her back hard in the mud. The bullies laughed and high-fived one another.

Helga lay there, seeing colored dots in front of her vision, holding the mud-caked ball against her chest. Cold raindrops hit her face as she tried to get up and winced as pain shot up her back. The Bear walked over and stood above her. "Get up," she said to Helga, looking down at her with surprising determination. "Come on girl, don't you give up on us now." Somehow the words were enough to make Helga fight through the pain and get up, with a little help from Bear, who patted her on the back and nodded. "Come on, let go beat these bitches."

"Right," Helga said focusing now. With Bear on the field they still had a chance of winning and they were only about twenty feet from the goal with two more downs to go. It was still possible. The rest of the Red Team seemed to hearten as well. They all listened as Helga called the next play. "PG go right, Bear keep them off me long enough to throw. The rest of you, keep them away from her, got it?" At their nods and occasional responses, they broke the huddle and formed a line.

Across from Helga and Bear, Bowers glared at them. "You're never going to get another step! End of the line! Come and get a piece!"

"Why Bowers, I didn't know you offered, too bad I don't swing that way," Trashmouth said, unable to resist. A couple of the inmates on the Red Team snickered.

"You and I will play later you little freckle-faced _bitch_!" Bowers promised glancing at Trashmouth.

Helga shouted, "Hike!" Both lines collided again and again Helga had time to step back and watch PG run to the right of the line to the open. She threw it to her. The ball was high and just as PG grabbed it, she was hit hard in the stomach by Pena. Luckily she didn't drop it when she fell, but she only managed five yards. The bullies all howled with laugher.

"Are you OK?" Helga asked running over and helping the girl up. PG nodded and said, "Yeah, I guess so. Sorry Pataki." She looked glum. Helga patted her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. "You did OK, don't sweat it."

The rain began to come down a little more. It was a drizzle and thunder sounded nearby. Walker smiled again knowing the game was over. "OK ladies, last play, then back inside!" She looked over at Dr. Lang, who was buttoning her coat. The inmates on the stands watched the game intently and a little glumly. Walker smirked and nodded, pleased with herself, as she turned to watch the smaller inmates and The Bear get beaten.

Bowers stood in front of Helga and looked down at her. "The next three days, you and your little girlfriends are going to be cleaning that shithouse till _I _get tired." She smirked at her now. "And that's just a start, blondie."

Helga looked up at her and answered, feeling a bit bold, "Next play, I'm going to make you eat those words."

Bowers gave her a nasty look as she answered, "You're the one who's going to eat shit, Pataki." With a small shove, Bowers went to her team shouting out instructions.

Trashmouth looked at Helga and said, "I think Bowers is in love with you, Pataki."

Miranda on the other hand looked worried, "What if we can't get the goal?" A few others on the team looked anxious.

PG nodded, "Even with Bear on our side, they're still too big. The muddy ground helps, but not that much."

Helga looked back at Bowers and Pena, laughing among themselves, then back over at Miss Walker, who seemed to look right at her with a proud, arrogant smirk of her own. Helga frowned, remembering how this whole thing was the sadistic guard's plan and thought to herself, _'She's_ not_ going to get the better of Helga G. Pataki! Not today she's not!' _

Another thought crossed her mind then, of another football game in the rain. This one happened six months ago in the vacant lot back home that everyone called "Gerald Field" where her and the others in her class played against Wolfgang's fifth graders. That too had nearly been a one sided affair, before Arnold came up with a way to beat them in the end.

'_What would Arnold do?'_ Helga thought to herself, and then smiled as the lightbulb went off in her head. She had a plan. Thanking Arnold in her mind, Helga turned back to her team, now huddled together waiting for instructions.

"OK everyone, listen up, because I'm not going to repeat myself," she said to them, sounding like the Helga she'd been before coming to this terrible place. "When I hike the ball, we're going to do a triple reverse, razzle-dazzle fumbleroosky."

The girls blinked at her. "A what?" Someone asked confused. "What the hell is all that?" Another asked looking at her puzzled.

Helga knelt down and drew some figures in the mud with her finger, then pointing at some girls and then giving them their own instructions. The inmates listened to it all frowning in thought. "You sure this is going to work?" One inmate asked, looking at her skeptically.

Helga just smiled and nodded, "Oh yeah, it will. I've seen it done before." She thought of Arnold a moment, before shaking her head and looking at them. "This is the last play, right now we have to give it are all. We do this, we beat those sorry bitches who've been making our lives hell. You girl's with me?"

The smaller inmates all nodded, some of them glaring at the bullies as they did so. "Let's do this!" "We're going to give them something now!" Trashmouth nodded to Helga determined, no longer joking. Miranda and PG both looked ready, happy that one way or the other, it was almost over. The Bear looked at Helga and said, "They won't touch you." Helga just looked at her and nodded before they all lined up for what would be the deciding play.

"You're dead, Pataki!" Bowers howled across from her, a menacing smirk on her face.

Helga meet her gaze with one of her own and shouted out, "HIKE!"

The lines collided with the small girls doing their best and succeeding in tripping the larger inmates on the opposite team. Bear actually shoved one girl who came at her clean out of her shoes and managed to stay on her feet herself. Helga stepped back and handed the ball to PG, who ran with it to the right again. Bowers went after the smaller girl and just before she was about to get her, PG handed the ball off to Miranda running the other way behind her. Bowers slipped in the mud trying to change directions. Miranda ran behind the Red Team's line running to the left. Many of the Blue Team bullies were on their feet going after her at top speed. Just as they were about to grab her though, Miranda handed the ball off to another girl, who ran back to the right. Like with Bowers, most of the bullies slipped in the mud and took some of their own teammates with them. The girl with the ball ran towards the right and more Blue Team goons with Pena leading them ran at her. The girl then passed the ball to Trashmouth who ran back to the left. Again bullies slipped in the mud, or were tripped by Red Team girls.

During all of this, Helga ran through the hole in the line created by The Bear, and by all the Blue Team girls, going after the smaller girls running back and forth passing behind the original Red Team line, with Bowers shouting out, "GET THE DAMN BALL!" Helga ran to the goal and waved her arms, The Bear beside her. Trashmouth smiled at the signal and threw the ball into the air at the two girls. The seconds seemed longer than they were as the ball sailed right at Helga, who jumped up and grabbed it, before flipping into the goal and landing right in a mud puddle.

The next thing Helga knew, she heard a loud roar of cheering from the stands and from the field as the Red Team rushed over and helped her up, patting her on the back and hugging her. Trashmouth was jumping around like a lunatic and PG and Miranda hugged one another laughing. The Bear lifted the muddy Helga up onto her shoulders and pumped her fist into the air. Helga looked around and grinned as the excitement, feeling for the first time in a long time, like a winner.

Bowers was shouting at Pena and the other bullies and shoving them around. A small fight was started by this commotion that an irate Miss Walker and Miss Foster broke up. Bowers and Pena, as well as a couple of others were being led away, probably to the hole. Helga felt little sympathy for them.

On the sidelines, Dr. Lang looked at Helga and nodded a little to herself, then when she saw Helga look at her, she smiled a little and gave her a nod before leaving. Helga blinked surprised, but somehow felt even better.

* * *

The inmates returned to Dorm C and went right to the showers. The water was warm thankfully and the mud-covered girls all wasted no time discarding their soiled uniforms and stepping into the showers. The uniforms would be cleaned the next day by the losers, but for now, the winners and losing team alike were scrubbing off the mud from their bodies and taking account of their injuries. Both teams had lots of purple and red bruises all over, as well as some minor scrapes and cuts, which were already clotting. Mud and blood both washed down the drain.

Many of the larger girls who'd lost and now had double work to deal with the next three days grumbled, but some of them actually congratulate Helga and her friends on a job well done before drying off and going back to their rooms.

As Helga waited her turn she looked over at The Bear, who was finishing up and drying off with a large towel. She looked up at her and asked her, "So what's your deal, Bear? Why did you help us?"

The Bear looked down at Helga a moment, thinking about what to say. Then she answered, "You're tough, Pataki. You kept getting back up and you wouldn't let anyone hold you down. I admired that." She looked down a moment. "Even when you stood up against me that day, I admired you for fighting back . . . well, after I got through being pissed about it."

Helga smiled a little and nodded. "Yeah, um, listen about that, I'm sorry I got pudding all over you and got you put in the hole."

The Bear just shook her head smiling, "No, it's OK, I've been there enough time that it doesn't bother me much. Besides, I'm used to being alone." The last part she said in a quiet way. Helga saw this and understood that loneliness in more ways than one.

"Look, Bear," Helga said, considering something. "Whatever your reasons were, I wanted to say thanks, and if you want, you're welcome to have all of my deserts from now on, but only if you join me and the others at our table at lunch."

The Bear blinked, realizing what Helga was saying to her and smiled. "I'd like that, Pataki."

"Helga."

"Helga?" The Bear blinked, then smiled and nodded. "Right, Helga." Then she added, "Oh and it's Millicent, but I like Bear better."

Smiling Helga joked, "It suits you." The larger girl look at her with a slight scowl, but Helga added quickly, "Hey, I meant that in a good way."

The Bear smiled quickly, "I know, kid, just messing with ya." With that she walked out of the bathroom after retrieving a new uniform from the pile near the doorway.

The others finished their showers and told Helga they'd meet her later as they left. Helga was grateful, since it had been awhile since she took a shower alone. She stripped out of her muddy uniform and tossed it into the large clothes basket nearby and stepped into one of the still running showers and raised her face into the warm stream of water with a sigh.

As Helga stood there, with her hands against the wall, her head lowered, she looked down at the mixture of mud and blood draining off of her body and at the extent of the bruising she'd endured during the football game. She had several red, black, and blue places where she'd been tackled, kicked, elbowed, or punched on her chest, stomach, and abdomen. She couldn't see the places on her back but she could feel them throbbing. The semi-hot water felt heavenly as the cold feeling in her skin started to go away and she washed the mud out of her growing hair.

Helga took the soap she had and began to scrub her body good, ignoring the aching in her joints from so much physical contact. She then closed her eyes and raised her face to the water again, letting it trickle down her face. It felt really good to be clean again. She rinsed out her hair and lathered it with the soap and repeated.

Once she was done she cut off the water and rubbed her eyes to clear them out and turned around. When she did so, she let out a small yell of surprise at what she saw.

Standing in the doorway leaning against the wall looking right at her was Miss Walker. Her eyes stared at Helga – who didn't even have a towel close by to cover herself – in a way that somehow make her wish that she had three layers of clothes on at the moment. The large woman's eyes flickered up to Helga's face and a tight smirk crossed her face.

"We really think we're such hot shit now, don't we, Pataki?" Walker said in a sneering sarcastic way.

Helga frowned at the woman and walked over grabbing a towel and putting it around her body modestly, trying not to let the hateful woman see how nervous and bothered she was.

"Well, I got some news for you, you little bitch," the woman said, not waiting for an answer. "In here you're nothing to me, just like the rest of that garbage out there. I don't care how short, or long you're time is supposed to be here, but in here, you're little ass belongs to me."

"Oh really," Helga said, feeling a need to respond, despite her better judgement. "And here I thought my ass belonged to the State."

Walker glared at Helga and leaned up again, frowning. "You don't want to smart off to me, you little slut," she spat out, in a hissing voice. "I'm not somebody you want to screw around with, Pataki. You better keep that in mind while you're here. Do _we_ understand each other?"

Helga frowned again at her use of the word "we" like she was a doctor, or royalty. "Oh I understand you very well, Sybil," Helga said unable to resist the sarcasm.

Walker just continued to look at her a moment with that flat, creepy look before she turned and left without another word. All at once, for some reason Helga couldn't figure out, she felt like another shower.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_

_I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and who waited patiently for this story to continue. I hope this chapter was worth the wait. Coming up next (which wont be months this time) a little humor and coming of age stuff. Stay tuned. -D.R._


	40. Chapter 39: Girl Talk

_From The Author: This next chapter as promised deals with some "coming of age" stuff and may not be suitable for some readers under the age of 13 or so. This story is rated T for a reason, and anyone under that age reads at their own risk. You've been warned, so no flames, okay? -D.R._

**Chapter Thirty-Nine: Girl Talk**

The next morning, after first count the girls of Dorm C were taken right to breakfast. They skipped exercise today because outside it was raining heavily, which the girls were all thankful for. Miss Walker also had the day off, which was another reason to be thankful as far as most of them were concerned. The bullies were the only ones who looked angry since they now had double duties to do today while the girls that won the previous day's football game now had much needed free time, courtesy of the administration.

Helga sat at one of the usual tables in the mess hall with Trashmouth sitting to her right and PG to her left. Miranda sat across from her and The Bear sat by her side. As usual, the girls started to give some of their bread to PG, but aside from one piece for Tony, who cooed lightly from underneath her shirt, she told them not to worry about it. "They won't let us outside today and the birds won't eat in the rain." She sighed.

"Oh don't sweat it, girl," Trashmouth said pouring some sugar from a packet onto a pile of runny grits. "Ah, now that's what I'm talking about."

The Bear made a face. "I can't believe someone would put sugar in grits."

"What's wrong with sugar in grits?" The redhead asked, looking up at her as she tore open another packet.

"Sugar in oatmeal is one thing," Bear explained raising an eyebrow. "But for grits, butter or margarine is the way to go."

"Says who?"

"Says anyone who grew up eating grits," Bear said matter-of-factly. "My dad's from Tennessee, he made them all the time when I was growing up."

Helga smiled a little, "My friend Phoebe's mom is from Kentucky and she also makes grits. I personally don't care for them. She always put honey on hers." She mixed her runny eggs up with her spoon.

"Heathens," Bear said in mock disgust. "Ruining good southern cooking with your Yankee ways."

PG shrugged, "It doesn't matter what you put in them, they still taste like wet oats to me." Miranda nodded and added, "I prefer french toast."

Bear sighed and looked up at Trashmouth. "Fine, but I still say that butter is better for grits."

Trashmouth just shrugged and mixed up the sugar in the grits and them ate a spoon full and smiled. "Well you eat them your way and I'll eat them mine, now that way, we can live in perfect hominy." Everyone at the table groaned at her lame joke, while she just grinned like a loon.

Later that day while Bowers, Pena, their gang, and the other inmates were on work detail, the other inmates of Dorm C spent their newfound free time just lazing about and doing nothing. The ping pong table and the television became very popular, and so did the regular tables where several of the inmates congregated to talk and smoke if they had cigarettes.

It was during this time that Helga got to know Bear a lot better. She was fourteen years old, and was indeed in Cherry Hell for aggravated assault on another fourteen year old, a boy who was trying to beat her up, along with a friend of his.

"He tried to beat me up with a baseball bat," she explained later on as they sat together at dinner that evening. "You see, I was the only girl on the wrestling team at my middle school and apparently these two didn't like the idea of losing a match against one of the 'weaker sex' so they tried to 'persuade me' to quite. I refused and they tried to take me out, only I managed to get the upper hand on them. I got the bat from the first one and his buddy ran away like a little bitch. Then I started wailing on the first one with the bat.

"Next thing I know, the cops showed up and when the smoke had cleared, this jerk wound up in a body cast and I wound up in here for eighteen months for assault with a deadly weapon."

"Ah, another tale of the deconstruction of America," Trashmouth said, taking a mouthful of hash and rice. That earned a laugh from all of them.

Helga winced a little then and closed her eyes as pain shot through her stomach and abdomen.

"You OK, Pataki?" PG asked, looking up at her.

She shook her head, "No, I feel a little bit sore. It's my stomach. I think maybe I might have bruised something yesterday." Helga gasped and clutched her stomach again.

Bear looked at her sympathetically. "You better go right to bed when you get back to the dorm."

Helga nodded and somehow managed to finish eating, despite the shooting pains in her abdomen.

When they got back to the dorm, Helga suddenly needed to use the bathroom. She rushed into the stall and sat down. Nobody was in there and she couldn't help but feel a little bit of relief. Despite the fact that nearly three weeks in Juvie had made her accustomed to being under observation at all times, the idea of taking a piss while someone was watching still bothered her a little.

It wasn't good. Urinating felt bad, almost like it was on fire. She took some toilet paper and wiped and then almost let out a yell. The paper had several drops of blood on it. _Oh criminy! I've got internal bleeding! _

"What did you do, fall in?" Trashmouth said in her usual smiling was as she strolled in.

"Shannon! I – I have to go to the infirmary!" Helga said, now in full panic mode.

Trashmouth blinked and all of her usual humor was gone, replaced by serious concern at once. "Are you OK? What is it?"

"I'm bleeding inside," Helga said bunching up some of the toilet paper to put inside her underwear, which she could now see had a few drops of blood on them also. "It's coming out! Look!" She showed her the paper.

Trashmouth looked at it, and Helga expected to see her panic also, but instead she blinked and looked at Helga with a very strange smile on her face. "Helga, how old are you?"

Helga blinked at the question. "Criminy, I'm dying here and you're asking me my age?! I'm ten and a half! Happy now!"

Her redheaded roommate just shook her head, "Relax, you're not dying, Pataki. You're just on the rag."

"On the . . . ?" Helga blinked once again and this time her face turned slightly pink. All at once she felt really silly. She grew up with an older sister (much to her annoyance) and of course knew all about periods. Since Olga went off to college though, and she had little to do with her mother on most days, Helga hadn't had to think about such things in years. Now all of it came back and hit her right in the face . . . or maybe, right in the stomach.

Trashmouth smiled and asked sympathetically, "This your first?" Helga nodded feebly, unable to talk out of embarrassment. "It's OK, I was a bit freaked my first time also."

"My first period," Helga said in a whisper, looking at the floor. She didn't know how to prepare for this. She didn't even have Miriam to talk to about it, or Phoebe for that matter. How unfair was it that such a defining moment had to happen while she was locked up in this place?

"Oh you think that's bad, wait till you have to get tampons and pads," Trashmouth said now sounding like her old self. Helga on the other hand blinked and felt her face go hot. _Tampons?! Pads?! Oh Criminy!_

"Aww, my little roomie is finally turning into a woman," Trashmouth said, then actually walked into the stall with her and hugged her. "Hey! Cut it out!" Helga said, trying to push the loony girl off her.

"Ahem, you two lesbians go and do that back in your own room if you have to," Bear said from the doorway, with a smirk on her face. Helga blinked and, if possible, turned even redder thinking about how they must have looked to anyone walking in.

"Bear, guess what?" Trashmouth said turning and starting out of the stall. "Pataki here just started her first period!"

Helga's eyes widened and she felt her anger rising. "Criminy, why don't you just go out into the dorm and shout it out for the whole damn cell block?!" When she saw Trashmouth begin to smirk, Helga frowned and her eyes narrowed, "Don't even think about it, or I'll introduce you to Old Betsy!"

Bear meanwhile looked at Helga and smiled, "Don't worry about it, Pataki. Having a period isn't so bad once you get used to it. Oh yeah, stay here, I'll be right back." She rushed out of the bathroom before Helga could ask why. She wondered if The Bear was out there telling everyone about it, when she returned and had a pink and white box under her arms. "I brought you some pads, you're going to need these."

Helga was torn between embarrassment and gratitude as she took one of them out of the box. "Um, thanks."

"Do you need help?" Trashmouth asked.

"No!" Helga said looking up at her, shocked at the idea. "Criminy, turn around, don't watch!" Both girls did so, for which Helga was grateful.

"This calls for a special celebration," Bear said, smiling. "It's not everyday that another young girl becomes a woman."

Trashmouth smiled, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Smore party?" Bear asked.

"Smore party," Trashmouth repeated nodding.

Helga walked out of the stall, pulling up her pants and looked at them confused. "What the hell is a 'smore party'?"

* * *

That evening after dinner, about two hours before lights out, Helga found herself sitting in her dorm room with Trashmouth, Miranda, PG and The Bear. Bear was the last one of them to arrive for the smore party and she was carrying a pillow cover that had something inside it. She shut the door behind her.

Miranda blinked, "Won't the guard think something is suspicious if the door is closed?"

Bear smiled and shook her head, "No kid. As long as the light is still on, they don't care. They just figure that people want to be alone. Besides, they never leave the cage and come into the dorm unless something happens, or they decide to toss the bunks for drugs."

Trashmouth smiled and asked the older girl, "Did you get all the stuff?" Bear just nodded and then poured the contents of the bag on Helga's bunk. A bag of marshmallows, a pack of graham crackers, five large chocolate bars, a box of matches, a long candle, some tooth picks, a jar of creamy peanut butter, and a small pack of paper towels. Five cans of Yahoo Soda also rolled out of the bag.

Helga blinked, "Criminy, where the hell did you get all of that?"

The Bear smiled and said, "I got my sources. You'd be amazed what a whole carton of smokes can get you around this joint. Besides, this is a special occasion." She looked at Helga and winked. Helga felt a bit bad that Bear gave away so many cigarettes just for her. Plus, her stomach was still giving her trouble.

PG actually smiled at little. "I haven't had smores since summer camp last year." Miranda smiled and nodded also. "Same here."

"Well happy campers, this is our particular brand of smores – prison style." Trashmouth said smiling as she set everything down on a towel on the floor. The girls all sat down around the candle that Trashmouth lit with the matches. She let the hot wax settle on the bare floor by the blanket long enough to make the candle stand straight. The redhead then passed around the marshmallows, chocolate bars, graham crackers and tooth picks evenly to all of them. The girls then put a marshmallow on a tooth pick and took their turns roasting their marshmallows over the small flame.

"Too bad we don't have a real campfire," Miranda said toasting her marshmallow to a light brown. "If it was outside also we could have tents and sleeping bags also. I remember camping with my parents and looking up at the stars at night." She looked down thoughtfully and sighed. "We were supposed to go to the wilderness around this time and camp out while the leaves were falling off the trees. Autumn is my favorite season."

"So your family goes camping a lot then?" PG asked, looking over at her while she pulled off her burning marshmallow and put it on top of the graham cracker and the waiting chocolate bar. From underneath her shirt, Tony cooed quietly.

"Every summer I go to summer camp near Crater Mountain Lake in the upper part of the state, and in the fall time me and my parents take a weekend in October to go for a hike."

Trashmouth sighed, "Your lucky, all my mom ever wanted to do was laze around and watch soap operas all year. No life whatsoever away from the television, unless you count the assholes that she picked up somewhere. She has shitty taste in men." Her marshmallow was totally black and still burning when she set it on her chocolate and peanut butter.

Helga listened to them go on about family outings and stuff, frowning a little. The only time she'd ever gone camping was with Big Bob and Phoebe that once to test out his new line of merchandise for his store. The only positive thing to that had been the fact that Arnold and Gerald were at the same campsite. Despite a few desperate moments, they did eventually all have a good time together near the end.

She roasted her marshmallow only slightly and set it down hot on the chocolate and graham cracker. Then she put another graham cracker over it and took a bite. The gooey taste in her mouth made her smile. It also reminded her of the fact that they had roasted marshmallows that last night in the wilderness and that Arnold and her both got their marshmallows stuck together slightly. The idea that she'd shared something that also went into Arnold's mouth . . . .

"Pataki? Helga?"

Helga blinked and noticed that Trashmouth and PG were both looking at her strangely. "Um, I guess that you must love smores a lot then?" Trashmouth said smirking. "Sort of lost you there for a moment."

She blinked and quickly said, "Oh, um yeah, they're good. My first smores actually." Helga quickly shoved the rest of it into her mouth and ate it.

"Well I guess that's two firsts for you tonight then," Trashmouth said taking another bite of her own smore.

Miranda looked at Helga curiously, "What's it like?"

Helga frowned, "It's a pain in the ass."

"Actually, it's a pain in the –"

"Finish that sentence and die, Trashmouth," Helga muttered giving her roommate a look. The others laughed as they finished their own smores.

"I can't wait to have mine," PG said, putting some graham cracker inside her shirt for the pigeon.

"Trust me kid, you don't want to have it right away," Helga muttered as she felt another shot of pain in her stomach. She sat back against her bunk trying in vain to relax.

Trashmouth smiled and said, "Not to worry, roomie. I got just the thing for the occasion to help you deaden the pain." She smiled and pulled what looked like a rolled up cigarette from her shirt pocket.

Bear actually smiled at Trashmouth. "Where did you manage to get that, O'Feir?"

Trashmouth winked and said, "I have my sources also, honey."

Miranda looked at them and seemed confused. "What is it?"

"Left-handed Lucky," Trashmouth said with a grin as she put the dubious looking cigarette in her mouth and leaned over to light it on the candle flame.

The young girl blinked and her eyes widened, "You mean . . . that's marijuana?!" Helga blinked also, giving her roommate a surprised look.

The redhead leaned back and took a puff and then blew out some light grayish-looking smoke that smelled really bad. It sort-of reminded Helga of how Mr. Simmon's kitchen smelled during Thanksgiving last year when her and Arnold went to visit him. Helga vaguely wondered if that stuff tasted like it smelled. Whatever her own feelings were, Trashmouth smiled and shook her head a little. "Wow, now that's what I call a smoke."

Miranda looked a bit shocked now. "Jeez you shouldn't smoke that stuff!"

"Or what? I go to jail?" Trashmouth said sarcastically. Bear and PG both chuckled at that.

"It'll slow down your brain, kill your brain cells," Miranda said, trying to reason with her.

"Criminy, look who you're talking about," Helga said with a grin, unable to resist the shot at the sarcastic redhead. Helga agreed with Miranda in principal , but under the circumstances thought she was being a bit prudish.

Trashmouth just smirked, "Exactly! Besides it takes more than one joint to do that stuff and I only indulge on special occasions. I prefer ruining my lungs with good old tobacco."

Then she passed the smoke on to Helga who just blinked and gave the joint a mistrustful look. "Are you sure that stuff helps with pain?"

The clown just shrugged, "Ain't you ever heard of _herbal medicine_?" She gestured with it. Helga sighed and took it. She then looked at it a moment, bit her lip and took a quick puff. Helga managed to hold her breath for a moment, then the foul-smelling air (which actually smelled worse inside her sinus cavity than out of it) choked her and she coughed badly. "Criminy! I think I'm going to barf!" The Bear and Trashmouth both laughed at her. Helga resolved that she would never take up smoking, either tobacco, nor any illicit stuff either. She handed it down to Bear, who took it and gave a small puff, and blew out a smoke ring.

Bear then smirked and said, "Well then, while were loosening up, I think it's time for a few games." She then reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a deck of poker cards.

"Anything but _'Spin The Bottle' _or_'Three Minutes In Heaven'_. No offense ladies, but I think I need more than one hit to find any of you remotely appealing." Trashmouth then grinned like a loon.

Bear laughed at that as she began to deal out the cards. "Actually I was thinking a couple of games of strip poker." She had the joint between her teeth as she expertly passed around the cards. "Or, if you want, then we can just play for marshmallows?"

"Oh my gosh!" Miranda said, holding her cards and then setting them down. A deep red flush came to her cheeks and she looked a bit shocked. Next to her, PG let out a whistle as she looked at the cards in her hand. Even Trashmouth smirked a bit and said, "Wow Bear, you think of everything."

Curious now, Helga looked down at the cards in her hands. They looked pretty old and ordinary from the blue and white backings with the words: "Hot Guys Deck" emblazoned in faded red letters. It was only when she turned them over that she realized what Miranda and the other's saw and her eyes widened and she felt her own cheeks turn crimson as well.

The faces of each cards had in the corners both numbers or letters in the right top and left bottom, and the usual suits in the two remaining corners. In Helga's case: ace of spades, king of diamonds, nine of clubs, two of diamonds, and the queen of hearts. The middle of the cards, however, instead of displaying the appropriate number of each suit or a figure in the case of the kings, queens, and jacks, each card had the picture of an older male, none of whom could have been younger than twenty or so. All of which were standing in several poses – and had absolutely no clothes on at all!

Giggles from Bear and Trashmouth made Helga blink and look up scowling in a very unamused way.

Miranda somehow managed to recover from her sense of shock and looked up at Bear. "W-where in the world did you get these cards from?!"

Bear smiled and said humorously, "Oh, you know, like I said, I have my sources."

PG was looking with some fascination at the cards in her hands, her face seemed to be halfway between being grossed out and slightly compelled by the images. "So, that's what a guy looks like without any clothes on?"

Bear looked over at the smaller girl and raised an eyebrow, "You mean you ain't never seen a naked guy before?" When PG shook her head, Bear raised an eyebrow, "Not even your older brother in the shower, or your dad, or anything?"

PG blinked and said, "Oh, nice mental image there, Bear and no, I haven't."

"Me either," Miranda added, picking up one of her cards and glancing at the photo trying to take everything in slowly. She still looked a bit embarrassed, but curious now that the initial shock was over.

"Trashmouth? You ever seen a naked guy before?"

Trashmouth simply shrugged and glanced at her cards, not seeming to be particularly impressed by what she saw. "Not really, I'm and only child and the bum I called a father skipped out on me when I was four." One card she turned on its side and tilted her head a little examining it.

"Well, how about you, Pataki?" Bear asked looking right at Helga, who'd put her cards face down in front of her embarrassed. "Ever seen a naked boy before?"

Helga blinked and a random memory flashed through her mind for a split second. An image of Arnold taking off his clothes and getting ready for bed and her hiding in the wall behind the couch in his bedroom trying to steal back a parrot. She didn't remember much after he'd removed his jeans and underwear but what she did remember brought a slight smile to her face just then.

Bear noticed this smile and leaned forward just then. "Oh, I think we have a winner here. So tell us all about it. Who was he?"

The words quickly pushed aside the vivid image in Helga's mind. She blinked and said, "Huh? What? I – I don't know what your talking about."

Suddenly Trashmouth was on her feet and quickly went over to her bunk and grabbed the photo of Arnold from its place just underneath her own. "It wouldn't happen to have been this little boyfriend of yours, would it?" She asked with clear teasing amusement.

"Hey give that back!" Helga said, trying to stand up and snatching at the photo in Trashmouth's hand. Her stomach pained her and she still felt a bit woosy from the hit she took from the joint.

The redhead passed the photo over to Bear who took it smiling. "So, this your guy, Pataki?" She said, looking at the picture. "Wow, he's pretty cute."

Helga just snorted, "Yeah, if you like football-headed little geeks." She turned away but she couldn't control the slight reddening of her cheeks.

"I guess that includes you then," Trashmouth said smiling.

Miranda and PG both looked at the picture of Arnold and smiled. "He seems really nice," Miranda said looking up at her. "Was he the one who came to see you before?" Helga just nodded, not saying anything. PG handed the picture back to Helga, who looked down at it a moment, then put it safely inside her shirt pocket next to her pounding heart.

"So what's the deal with him? Is he your boyfriend?" Bear asked, looking at her carefully and passing on the joint to PG.

"No, not exactly," Helga said abruptly, then almost covered her mouth when she realized how she said it. _Damn it! Why did I blurt that out?! It must be that damn marajuana fumes in the air, _she thought.

Bear smiled at her in a knowing way. "Oh I see. I understand you now. You like this guy, and you want him to be yours, but you're too chicken to do anything about it."

Helga felt as if the world just got turned on its head. The pain in her stomach and abdomen was long gone, replaced by a chill in her spine that this inmate could pick up on her secret that quickly. Was she really that transparent to them?!

"N-No! You've got to be kidding me?! Me and that football-headed little twerp?! I'd rather kiss a cow than kiss him again –" Now Helga really did cover her mouth with both hands. Her eyes widened at her own traitorous voice.

"Aha! So it's true!" Trashmouth said enjoying Helga's obvious slips of the tongue.

Miranda blinked and looked at her, "You actually kissed him? Like on the_lips_ kissed him?" She looked amazed at that. "Wow, that's amazing!"

Bear looked at her surprised, "You mean you've never kissed a boy before, Riley?"

"Of course not, I'm only nine!" Miranda said, looking at the older girl surprised. "I mean, I never even kissed Billy Nash . . . though, I wanted to." She looked away and added that last part in a sad whisper.

Helga and the others looked at her, none of them speaking for a moment as the younger girl wiped her eyes. _He must have been her first crush, _Helga realized and suddenly felt a stab of anger at the jerk who used her.

"Well, neither have I," PG said, looking a bit sad also. "I mean, what boy in their right mind would want to kiss a weirdo?"

"You're not a weirdo," Miranda said, looking at PG sternly.

"Yeah, you're just a girl . . . who, um, likes to hang out with and talk to birds more than people," Trashmouth said in her usual teasing way as she continued to look through the racy deck of cards curiously.

"And what about you, O'Feir?" PG said, giving Trashmouth a look of annoyance. "Have you ever kissed a boy before then?"

"Nope, and I don't care to either," she said looking up at them now. "They're noting but jerks who go around breaking people's hearts and leaving them when they get what they want. You let them in and you regret it later on. They start out being nice to you and your friends, then they start hitting you around and . . ." She trailed off and bit her lip looking away. "Frankly, I'm better off without them." There had been no hint of any humor at all in her words.

After hearing those stories from her current friends on the inside, Helga realized for the first time just how lucky she was to have a great guy like Arnold, despite her own past treatment of him and pushing him away because of her own stupid fears. She knew then that if she ever got out of this place, her relationship with Arnold (at least as it stood) would be much better. She would see to that.

"So Pataki, tell us about this boy, Arnold," Bear said, looking at her curiously. "You and me seem to be the only ones here with details so far. Come on, share." The other girls looked at her expectantly also.

Helga frowned, "What about you? Why don't you share first?"

"I asked first," Bear said smiling a little, displaying her white teeth. "So spill girl. How many times have you kissed him and how far have you gone?"

Blinking, Helga understood that she was asking for juicy stories. Her first instinct was to deny anything and make up something just to pacify their curiosity. However, the stories from the others, and her own determination to change things, mixed in with two weeks of anxiety and separation from her beloved – not to mention the fumes from the joint in the small enclosed room they were in – made her reconsider the idea.

"You guys promise not to tell anyone? I mean, under pain of death, or dismemberment?" Helga asked looking at them carefully.

"You're secrets are safe with us," Trashmouth said smiling. "Besides, it's not like we're going to write to your little friend and spill the beans, or anything." She had a gleam in her eyes when she said that, and Helga reminded herself to blot out the return address on the letter's envelope when she got the chance, just in case.

Helga sighed, thinking that she must be crazy to do this – or maybe just high off of marijuana smoke – but what the hell. "Okay, fine."

For the next half hour or so, Helga did the last thing she ever thought she would do in Cherry Hell – she spilled her guts out about her secret love for Arnold. At first it was slow, but then things spilled out of her faster and faster.

Helga told about how they meet in preschool, about how she spent the better part of six years secretly loving him and then hiding that love behind her petty pranks and sarcastic tongue-lashings (which Bear and Trashmouth both howled in laugher over) about how she kissed him after maneuvering to get into a school play, about the spring break at the beach where she protected him from that older girl summer who was going to use him and later kissed him again. She even told them about the time that she saw Arnold naked when she was hiding in his room trying to get back a blabbermouth parrot (which earned her some whistles, claps and "Ooooohs" from the others). Finally she got to the incident where they kissed on the rooftop of the FTI building when they saved Arnold's neighborhood.

Helga took a sip from her can of soda to wet her dry throat, "We were getting along much better after that, I know he likes me deep down and I think I was this close to getting him to say so, when I ended up in this place." She looked up at the others to see their reactions.

All five of them were giving her really sympathetic looks. Miranda shook her head and whispered, "Wow, that's really amazing. Loving someone almost your whole life like that."

PG nodded, smiling at her. "You're lucky to have someone you love."

Trashmouth just sighed and shook her head, "Yeah it's tragic. You love this dense little twerp and he doesn't notice. Boys are just so damn clueless."

Helga actually smiled over that, "Tell me about it."

Bear just smiled at her. "Wow Helga, you've really gone through a lot for this guy. And from the sounds of it, this Arnold boy has done a lot for you too. You are lucky to have someone that cool in your life."

"Thanks Bear," Helga said smiling at her slightly.

"So Bear, now it's your turn to spill?" Trashmouth said, finishing off her own Yahoo soda. "Give us your own little love story then."

Bear smirked and said, "Well, I don't have a long time love affair like Pataki here (at those words, Helga blushed a little) but I think I have all of your beat when it comes to boys. I had this guy I knew, named Marcus. He was in another class in my school, same grade as me though. He was really cool and we started going out in fifth grade. He played basketball and after games, he and I would go out and have fun. Sometimes we would skip classes and kiss under the bleachers in the gym. One time we got caught and were sent to detention for it."

She had a small sad smile on her face. "Marcus was such a great guy. Even though I did have a tough girl rep at my school, he still went out with me and didn't care that it wasn't part of the social order."

"What happened with him?" Helga asked, folding her arms around her legs and looking at Bear intently.

Bear sighed and said, "Well, after I got sent here, he wrote to me a few times, and I called him twice, but things just sort-of slacked off. He's obviously getting on with his life while I am in here." She frowned and drank down her own soda.

"That sucks," PG said, looking down at her shoes. Miranda nodded also.

Helga just looked at Bear and thought about what she said. What if Arnold forgot about her? What if him and Phoebe and Gerald just gave up and went on with their lives? Could she handle that the way Bear did?

"So did you slip old Marcus the tongue, Bear?" Trashmouth asked, looked over at her and smiling. She obviously wanted to hear the juicy details.

The question seemed to bring Bear out of her thoughts. She actually smiled and said, "Oh you better believe it. Sometimes we would go over to his place and make out. I once gave him a hickey that almost lasted a month." She smiled proudly at that. "Damn I'm good."

Miranda blinked at that. "You actually made out with a guy? Wow! What's that like?" The others leaned in, curious about that.

Smiling in a cocky way, Bear said, "Oh you're still too young for that sort of thing kid, but let me tell you it's awesome. Especially when the guy kissed you right along your neck and shoulders. It sends a shiver all the way down your whole body . . ."

"_Ahh, virgin ears! Virgin ears!"_ Trashmouth said covering her ears and laughing like a loon. PG giggled and Helga shook her head smiling.

Bear smirked and said, "Hey don't knock it unless you tried it, honey. My older sister Patty is in high school and has a boyfriend and they make out all the time. Hell, they've even done it."

PG blinked and looked at her. "Done what?" Miranda also looked at the Bear a little confused, "You mean they make out also?" Trashmouth also looked at Bear blinking, now honestly curious. Helga was also intrigued.

Bear seemed to realize how young the others were and said, "Um, maybe we should skip that –"

"Oh come on, you can tell us," Trashmouth said, now fully paying attention to her. "What did they do?"

The older inmate shrugged, "You know . . . '_it_'." She bit her lip looking at all their confused expressions. "Haven't any of your parents ever explained that to you?"

"Explained what?" Miranda asked.

"It," Bear said, now turning a bit red on her cheeks. "You know . . ._'doing it'._" When she saw they were still slightly confused, she sighed and blurted it out. "Sex."

Now all of them understood and they all blushed now. Helga blinked over and over at that. The only things she knew about sex where from movies, and even those only showed a few brief moments where two people were just naked under covers. Then something Bear said came back to her and she asked, "Hold on, how do you know your older sister and her boyfriend . . . um, 'did it' anyhow?"

Bear bit her lip and said, "I um, actually spied on them once and saw." She actually looked embarrassed about admitting that. She frowned at the shocked looks all of them gave her. "Hey I was just curious, okay?"

Trashmouth smirked now and said, "So what did you see? Come on, tell us! Don't keep us in suspense. We're all ladies here, you can tell us." She sat with her legs folded under her Indian-style, like a little girl waiting to hear her kindergarten teacher read her The Cat and The Hat. At least that's how she would look if she didn't have that amused, and slightly perverted smirk on her face.

Helga was also curious about it all, since she didn't see Bob, or Miriam as the sort of parents she could ask about that sort of thing. That only left Olga, and she wasn't about to ask her about anything that embarrassing. She looked at Bear and said, "Hey, I spilled my guts out about the guy I loved, this is the least you can do."

Both PG and Miranda were looking at Bear with wide-eyed curiosity as well.

Bear just looked at them, and then shrugged. "What the hell. You ladies asked for it."

"Hell yeah we asked for it, now tell us all about _'it'_, before we all go nuts and lose it," Trashmouth said, unable to resist the pun. Everyone laughed and that loosened the mood in now the pot-smelling room.

Bear shook her head, then looked at Helga, "Well, I guess since Pataki just had her first period. I think she, and the rest of you should know what's in store for the future." She took out a cigarette and lit it, then told them.

About five minutes later, Bear finished her very detailed description of what she'd seen and heard her older sister and her boyfriend do. Along with this, she also included details on the subject that she'd read about in romance novels and dirty movies that her father had hidden in his closet in vivid detail.

"Well, there you go ladies," she said, leaning back and looking at each of them with a very serious expression on her face. "That's what boys and girls do together when they get older."

The four younger girls looked at her wide-eyed, each one of them had a different expression of shock on their faces. They looked at one another a moment, then let out a single, collective: "Eeewwwww!!!"

"That's so gross!" PG said, shaking her head a little, as if trying to get the images out of her mind. Miranda was still looking at Bear with a slightly thoughtful look on her face, as if struggling to believe what she just heard.

Trashmouth just went back to looking at the dirty poker cards and raising an eyebrow, then blinked and said to herself, "Like hell I'm letting some jerk do _that_ to me."

Helga just looked down, and her mind was rushing with images of what she'd been told. The concepts of what Bear explained to her were somewhat beyond her. No matter how much she loved Arnold, the idea of going that far with him – at least at this point in their lives – was a bit too much for her to think of. The images wouldn't form.

_Just as well,_ Helga thought to herself. _Right now, I'd be happy if I just got to kiss Arnold on the__mouth again. _The idea of french kissing him was one that brought a blush to her cheeks. If she'd of had just a little while longer back on the FTI balcony . . .

Bear just took out her pack of cigarettes and lit another one. "Well ladies, now that we've told enough dirty stories, think we can get down to playing cards before the guards cut off the lights?" The other four girls jumped at the chance and they played rummy the rest of the time. They kept points on a notepad that Trashmouth kept to write letters home.

They joked and laughed the whole time about other things involving guys they knew, friends on the outside and other topics. By the time the guard on the intercom told them it was five minutes to lights out, PG was the one ahead with the most points and grinning over her rummy playing skills.

Bear stood up and yawned loudly. "Well, goodnight ladies. See you at breakfast."

Trashmouth smirked, "Can't wait to see what Sutherland is going to poison us with tomorrow."

PG smiled, "Night everyone . . . oh and Tony said night as well."

"Well 'coo-coo-cachoo' to him too," Trashmouth said and laughed.

"Hey you stole my sarcasm!" Helga said in mock annoyance now. "Nobody rips off Helga G. Pataki and gets away with it!" Then she picked up the pillow from her bunk and hit her with it.

Trashmouth laughed and said, "Oh you wanna play rough huh?" Then she tossed her own pillow from her bunk at Helga, who ducked laughing. Suddenly Bear grabbed Helga from behind. "Hey!"

"Free licks!" Bear said laughing. Trashmouth, PG and Miranda both laughed as they took turns pummeling a laughing Helga Pataki with the pillows. Once they were done, Bear let Helga go and said, "Happy 'First Day On The Rag' Day."

Helga shook her head smiling and then looked at all of them. "You guys are the best. I mean it." She looked at them and for the first time since she was put in this place, she actually felt like she had on the outside. "Thanks for all this."

Bear just smiled and nodded, "Goodnight, Helga." She turned and left. "See you tomorrow morning," PG said and turned to leave also.

"Night PG . . . oh you too Tony," Helga added the last hearing the pigeon coo. She looked at Miranda, who smiled and said, "Goodnight, Helga." Then she left with PG. Helga closed the door behind them hearing the guard on duty tonight telling everyone to get to their rooms. She then helped Trashmouth put away the garbage. The redhead blew out the candle and put it away.

"Criminy, the room still smells like that pot stuff," Helga said, feeling sleepy and slightly dizzy from the smell.

"It'll go away tomorrow," her roommate assured her, then turned to look at her. "Um, I wanted to say . . . I'm sorry I said that stuff about Arnold before." Helga blinked at that. "I know that my look on boys ain't very good, and with good reasons for me, but if he's half as good as you said, then you're lucky you found someone." Then she added, "Oh and if he forgets you, then he is a doofus."

Helga smiled and said, "Thanks Shannon, that means a lot to me." She took out Arnold's picture and set it on her bunk before she changed clothes. She blinked and then turned his picture upside down as she changed, feeling a bit irrationally self-conscious after the whole "Birds and the Bees" talk from before. Helga changed her pad also, frowning a bit because it was so sticky. It was covered in blood. "Criminy, I'm never going to get used to this."

Trashmouth was already laying in her bunk and looking up at the ceiling. "Oh you will, and at least its only for five days out of the month at the most." She yawned then and closed her eyes.

"Great," Helga muttered to herself as she put a fresh pad in her underwear and then put on a pair of shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt to sleep in. Then she laid down and put Arnold's picture back above her in the springs and looked at Arnold's smiling face. She grinned as the fantasy about french kissing Arnold came to her mind and she closed her eyes and fell asleep, feeling content and happy, despite the pain in her abdomen. Her dreams were of Arnold and his smiling face.

It would be the last time she had a good dream for the remainder of her stay in Cherry Hell.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_

_Yeah I know, that last line is a bit ominous, huh? Well you know that old saying, it's always darkest before the dawn. In Helga's case, the darkest parts are coming up. Be afraid for her – be very afraid!Next chapter, Arnold gets a big clue in the ongoing mystery of who framed Helga. Yep, next chapter, totally Arnold. Read and Review! -D.R._


	41. Part 40: Pent up Frustrations and Note

**Chapter Forty: Pent Up Frustrations and the Note **

"_Ar-nold," a familiar voice that sounded far away called out to him in a sing-song way. _

_Arnold was standing in Tina Park, surrounded by falling, golden yellow and orange leaves looking around for the voice that spoke to him. "Helga? Where are you?" The wind around him picked up. He turned in a circle as the leaves fell all around him, almost as thick as raindrops. _

_Then he saw her and blinked surprised._

_She stood underneath a tree about twenty feet away, more orange leaves falling all around her. She was wearing her usual pink dress, white shirt and her pink bow was waving in the wind along with her long, golden pink pigtails. Helga was smiling at him serenely. _

"_Helga, is that really you?" Arnold asked blinking again and feeling his heart pound faster in his chest. _

_Helga then frowned and put her hands on her hips, "Well duh, of course it's me, _football-head_, who else would I be?!" Arnold laughed when he heard that, unable to believe he would have ever found that attitude something to smile about. He ran to her. _

_She was smiling at him again and she held out both her arms to welcome him . . . _

_Then from out of nowhere, a pair of dark arms grabbed Helga from behind and her face quickly turned from happiness to fear. Her eyes widened in terror and she cried out to him, "NO! ARNOLD! DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME! I'M INNOCENT!" _

"_HELGA!" Arnold cried out in alarm seeing nothing but a dark void behind her where the trees ended. She was being pulled in by arms that looked like they belonged to juvenile inmates, one of which was even tattooed with a skull. Helga fell to the ground, and was now being pulled by her ankles into the darkness. She was screaming and already halfway in it, trying to claw her way unsuccessfully on the leaf-covered ground when Arnold made a leap and landed in front of her grabbing her hands. _

"_I've got you, Helga! Hang on!" Arnold said trying with all his strength to keep her from being pulled into the abyss behind her that he knew would take her to hell. _

_Helga looked up into his face, her terror-stricken blue eyes meet his own frightened green ones. "Arnold, I'm innocent! Please don't let go! Don't let them take me there!" _

"_I won't let you go!" Arnold shouted, holding on as if it were his own life on the line. "No matter what, I won't let go of you!" Her hands began to slip out of his now sweaty ones. _

"_Arn—AAHHHHHHH!" Her hands slipped out of his and she was quickly pulled into the dark void, her terror-filled shriek was all Arnold could hear as the void disappeared before he could get to it and follow her inside. _

"_HELGA!" He leaned over on all fours on his knees, grabbing handfuls of grass and lowering his head in defeat. Arnold started to cry. "No, Helga!"_

"_Arnold?"_

_His head shot up and he turned around. The voice—_her voice_—came from behind him. Arnold felt joy shoot through him as if he'd been struck by lightning. "Helga!" But in an instant, his joy turned into horror. _

_Standing there behind him was Helga, but not as she'd been before. She was standing over him in a pair of light blue dungarees with the numbers 0712 on the left shirt pocket. Her hands were cuffed in front of her and her hair was cut short, with her pigtails cut off and her pink bow missing. Bruises covered her face and her right eye was black. She stared down at Arnold with a dark, accusing stare. "YOU STUPID FOOTBALL-HEAD! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP ME! YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T LET THEM TAKE ME AWAY!"_

_Arnold flinched and crawled backwards till he was stuck against a tree with his back to it. "Helga, I-I did! I tried my best! I really have, but I . . ."_

"_IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, ARNOLD-O! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" Jailbird Helga stalked toward him, murder clear in her eyes. _

"_N-NO! HELGA!" Arnold flinched closing his eyes, waiting to be pummeled into next week when he heard his name being repeated over and over . . . . _

"Hey Arnold! Hey Arnold! Hey Arnold!"

Arnold opened his eyes slowly and then quickly sat up in bed and looked around frightened. The alarm clock continued a moment longed before he reached out and pulled the wire connected to the potato that ran his alarm clock. Then he sat up and rubbed his eyes automatically as he always did before pulling back his covers and stepping out of bed.

He walked to his bathroom, which thankfully wasn't occupied this morning, and removed his pajamas and underwear, then stepped into his shower and washed off. The whole time he thought about the nightmare, and shivered despite the warm water. Then Arnold let out a small sob and sat down in the bottom of the shower and just let the water flow around him.

Later he dressed and went downstairs at ate his breakfast, not really tasting it, or noticing the conversations around him. His extended family noticed the change in him. Arnold no longer seemed particularly attentive, or offered any advice. He hardly ever left his house anymore; indeed he would simply go up to his room after coming home from school and just stay by himself.

After breakfast, Arnold met Gerald outside on the stoop. His best friend smiled and said, "Hey Arnold."

"Hey Gerald," Arnold nodded then did his friendship handshake with his best friend. Together the two of them walked several blocks to Phoebe's house in near silence.

Gerald knew that Arnold didn't talk much these days. Sometimes he and Phoebe would make an effort to try and talk to him about hanging out, but Arnold usually didn't respond to it. Other times Gerald would tentatively suggest hanging out with the class, but that only made Arnold mad. He still hadn't forgiven them for siding against Helga.

Phoebe was waiting for them just outside her home, standing in front of her stoop anxiously. Since the incident with Simone, she continued to worry about whatever retaliation that those two bullies might attempt. Despite her worrying however, neither of them had done more but give her dirty looks in the hallways since then. That didn't stop Phoebe from hurrying past them as she got to class. Nowadays she didn't go anywhere alone much, not without Arnold or Gerald, or both accompanying her.

"Good morning Gerald, good morning Arnold." Phoebe said smiling politely at them.

"Hey there Phoebe," Gerald said offering his right hand to her. Phoebe smiled and took it, shifting her books to her left hand.

Arnold offered a small sad smile as he saw that. Now that Phoebe had taken to hanging around with them constantly in Helga's absence her and Gerald's relationship had grown closer. Arnold knew Gerald was a sympathetic ear and a source of comfort to her and as such the usual flirty friendship between the two grew slightly closer until now it became an actual relationship.

He remembered that it was starting to happen even before Helga's imprisonment and that for a few days there the sadness over her loss made things too awkward for anything more to happen. But now, after two long weeks of phone calls and hanging out, Gerald and Phoebe had all but announced that they were a couple—and Arnold didn't think that it would be much longer before they did that, if only to tell him rather than the rest of the class.

Arnold couldn't help looking around at the nearly clear skies and a moment later they passed Mighty Pete, the last big tree in the city with its leaves turned to a golden shade of brown and tan. A few late butterflies fluttered around some autumn bell flowers growing near the base of the tree.

Normally such sights would have made Arnold's mind wander with particular thoughtful insights and wonderful daydreams. However the only dream in Arnold's mind was that of Helga dressed in her prison issue uniform with her pigtails cut off and her face bruised and battered.

Both Gerald and Phoebe looked back and saw the glum look on Arnold's face as he stared at the tree. Neither of them said anything but they did share a sad look. Both of them were very worried about Arnold—it was another thing that their newly developing relationship had in common.

The trio arrived at PS 118 about fifteen minutes later and went right to Mr. Simmons's classroom.

The rest of the class was their usual selves. Rhonda and the rest of the girls were sitting near the windows talking and gossiping—especially Rhonda, who insisted on doing most of the talking. In the back Curly was looking at Rhonda and plotting some unknown plans. Close to him Sid, Stinky and Harold were laughing with Iggy and Park over some prank or another. Harold laughed hardest and most annoying of all.

When the three of them entered, Arnold sat at his desk not talking to any of them, or favoring any of them with nods, or even with glares. Gerald sat in the desk beside him and Phoebe in the desk just behind Arnold's. None of them were talking to anyone in the class, except to do class work whenever Mr. Simmons assigned them to others, and even then the talk was curt and too the point.

The rest of the class knew they were being ignored, which caused sadness among those like Sheena, Park, Lila, Iggy, Nadine and Eugene. It caused annoyance among the boys in the class and outright outrage among Rhonda who maintained that since she was Rhonda Wellington Lloyd she and she alone decided who was ignored and who was not. Curly, on the other hand, didn't care at all about it, nor did Brainy, who seemed lost in his own world and was usually so quiet nobody ever really seemed to notice him anyhow.

Most of the time, Arnold didn't even really pay much attention to Mr. Simmons as he taught them, but instead he would always think about spitballs, erasers and rubber bands hitting the back of his head and neck. And sometimes he would look back at the empty desk in the back and sigh, wishing that a certain golden pigtailed girl would be there smirking or scowling at him, trying to look innocent of playing her petty attention-seeking tortures.

At lunchtime the trio sat together at the same table near the window. It was cloudy outside and looked as if rain were coming. The lunch was one of Gerald's favorite, spaghetti and applesauce. Arnold barely touched it, eating only a few bites before someone came up to them. It was Principal Wartz.

"Young man, would you care to explain this flyer I found on the bulletin board outside the office?" He held out a familiar looking piece of paper to Arnold, who looked up at him defiantly.

"It's a flier that me, Gerald and Phoebe wrote to see if anyone will come forward who witnessed the fire and prove that Helga didn't start it."

Principal Wartz frowned at him and said, "Young man, the school's bulletin board is not a public forum for inciting civil disobedience towards the administration."

Phoebe blinked, "But sir, we're not trying to disrupt anything, we're just trying to discover the truth about what happened."

"Miss Heyerdahl, the police have already done that. They have gone through the evidence found at the crime scene and talked to most of the student body and the faculty members."

Wartz then looked at them, his scowl deepening. "I would have thought that the detention that I gave to you three for disrupting the work on refurbishing the Principal's office would have been enough—"

Gerald frowned at him, "Look man, we told you we were looking for evidence!"

That had been the same thing he told Wartz when they went to look for clues about the fire and found, to their shock, that the office was being refurbished and repainted. When Wartz caught them there and given them each detention for causing a disruption, an act which completely upset Phoebe, who now had a detention on her permanent record.

Apparently Wartz didn't appreciate being cut off when he was speaking. He frowned at Gerald and said, "If you care for another detention Mr. Johannson, then I will me more than happy to give it to you if you say anything else."

Then he looked at all of them and added, "Your loyalty to your friends is admirable, but misguided. The police have already collected all the evidence they need and now it is up to the law to determine the guilt, or innocence of Miss Pataki. Since it is now a legal matter and Miss Pataki is no longer a student here, it has nothing more to do with the day to day running of this school. I suggest you go on with your school work and leave what happens outside of this school for the end of the day is that clear?"

Arnold ground his teeth together and scowled up at the principal, but no matter his own personal feelings, he couldn't let Gerald and Phoebe get in trouble again. He just said, "Yes sir." The others nodded as well. Principal Wartz just nodded and left the flyer on the table in front of Arnold when he left.

Gerald looked at Arnold and sighed, "Well, so much for that idea."

"It was up two days, maybe someone saw it?" Arnold said hopefully.

Now Gerald looked uncomfortable and said, "Arnold, it's been two weeks now. I don't think we're going to find anything. I hate to say this buddy, but maybe Principal Wartz is right? Maybe the police will figure out the truth?"

Arnold looked at him and frowned, "Yeah the same people who locked Helga up in that terrible place? They're not interested in the truth; they just want to say she did it."

Gerald looked at Phoebe; both of them shared an uncomfortable look. Then Gerald said, "Buddy, I know you care about finding the truth, but you may have to face facts. This might be bigger than the three of us can handle. I mean, this is serious business like the time we saved the neighborhood from Sheck."

Arnold nodded, "And we managed to do that." _With help from Helga,_ Arnold wanted to add, but he never told Gerald who the mysterious Deep Voice had been—or about anything else that happened after he found out.

Gerald sighed, "Yeah, and we nearly got killed doing it. I mean, I know you like to look on the bright side of things, but you may have to face the idea that this time there may not _be_ a bright side."

Phoebe nodded, "I'm afraid I have to concur with Gerald. Helga would appreciate everything you are doing for her behalf, and I know she needs the moral support, however these matters appear to be beyond our control."

Arnold couldn't believe what he was hearing from them. "Are you saying we should just give up and forget about Helga?!" People turned and looked at him, since he'd raised his voice slightly and it carried, even in the usually noisy cafeteria chatter.

Phoebe blinked, "Arnold, I never said that! She's my best friend . . ."

"Than act like it!" Arnold said angry now, not wanting to listen.

Gerald stood up and looked at Arnold angry, "Look man, I know you're hurting but don't take it out on her!"

Arnold stood also glaring at his best friend, "Oh so you're on her side now? I should have guessed!"

"What the heck is _that_ supposed to mean?" Gerald asked, his voice sounding menacing.

"You two hang out together all the time now, and sometimes I feel like a third wheel. You have each other to hang around with now that Helga's gone. Maybe you two just want her to stay gone so that you can be together?!"

Phoebe covered her mouth and tears came to her eyes. Gerald was practically shaking with anger and his hands curled up to fists at his sides. "That whacked and you know it, man!"

Arnold felt sick to his stomach as he also shook in anger. "You two have each other, sometimes I don't know why you still hang around me!" With that he turned and left the cafeteria, leaving behind a shaken and sad Phoebe and a half angry and half bewildered best friend, not to mention dozens of stunned kids in his wake.

By the time Arnold walked to his locker, Arnold began to feel his anger slowly fade and began to feel ashamed for the way he spoke to his friends. He knew that Phoebe would never suggest giving up on Helga, the fact that she wrote to her everyday said as much. Gerald was just standing up for her because of how close they'd gotten. He was still Arnold's best friend even if he now had a girlfriend and Arnold knew Gerald and Phoebe would never exclude him on purpose.

Now he felt completely disgusted with himself and knew he had to go back and apologize for his actions before. He also knew that they could be right about what they and Principal Wartz said. Evidence that might prove Helga innocent—or guilty—had already been found and it was unlikely that Arnold would find anything knew after two weeks.

Arnold talked to Dr. Bliss the other day who assured him that the evidence against Helga is still circumstantial and that a jury may possibly throw the whole case out. That gave Arnold some hope.

Still, Arnold knew that there had to be something he could do. Something he was overlooking. Those determined and frustrated thoughts were on his mind as he opened his locker—and something fell out onto the floor.

Arnold looked down and saw a square folded sheet of notebook paper that didn't look familiar to him. He blinked and bent over getting it. "What's this?" He opened it and saw a simple note that read:

_**I know what really happened that day and it wasn't Pataki that started the fire. Meet me at the corner of 93**__**rd**__** and Dunham Streets at nine o'clock tonight. Come alone and make sure nobody follows you. I'm afraid of reprisals and they might hurt me if they find out. Please don't be late. – A. Friend **_

Arnold blinked and then felt the hairs on the back of his football-shaped head stand up. This is it! Somebody saw what happened and then saw the flyer and left this note! His heart leaped into his chest, this could be exactly what they were looking for to prove Helga's innocence.

The bell rang ending lunch period and Arnold hurried off to tell Gerald and Phoebe what he found. He practically ran back to the classroom, spurred on by new hope.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_

_Will Arnold learn the truth about the office fire and free Helga before something bad happens? Will this mysterious informer have something important to tell? Will Gerald and Phoebe forgive Arnold? Let me know what you think and give me your honest review of this chapter. ~D.R. _


	42. Part 41: Run Arnold!

_From DarthRoden (aka Carl)_

_Greetings to my faithful readers and those gracious enough to review my work. _

_I would like to apologize for the slowness of my work as of late. I know many people anxiously await updates of my fanfiction stories. The slowness of my work can be attributed to several factors, all of which I will address to you, because you deserve to know._

_First, I want all of you to rest assured that in NO WAY am I giving up on Hey Arnold! fanfiction, or with writing in general, quite the contrary. Hey Arnold! stories still remain to me the best source of drama and emotion of any series I have come across and I simply love the show so much._

_That being said I do have to announce reluctantly that I will have to remove "The Paintball Fight" "Southpaw Pataki" and "Hey Arnold! Episode II: Attack of the Clone" from my stories list. _

_The reason being that the source of several writers blocks have come from the knowledge that I have started more stories than I am capable of working on, and indecision on my part on which to write has caused considerable pressure and several small headaches on my part. I also need to do so to keep from being distracted from completing the other stories in progress that I am working on, chief among these are "The Broken Locket" and "Closet Confusion" as well as this story. _

_Let me also offer reassurances that once I have completed work on "Closet Confusion" and "The Broken Locket" (which I swear will be updated before the end of this month) I will return to these stories and repost them once I lighten my workload a bit. You have my word on it. _

_I would like to thank those who have stuck with my fanfiction ever since I started out and to thank those new readers who enjoy them and keep me going. As I swore to all of you, I will never leave a Hey Arnold! fic unfinished and I intend to live up to that solemn football-head promise. _

_Again, I apologize to those who waited so long for updates and to those who reviewed that I did not have a chance to respond to. I promise future signed reviews will be responded to as will the questions you ask of me . . . that doesn't mean spoilers though, so don't even think of asking, LOL! _

_Thanks again for putting up with me and enjoy this next exciting chapter (I promise) of "Falsely Accused." In all honesty, I should have added this chapter to the last one and made it one long chapter, but I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless. ~D.R. (aka Carl)_

_

* * *

  
_

**Chapter Forty-One: Run Arnold! **

Gerald was getting into his seat when he saw Arnold enter the classroom just as the tardy bell rang. Despite the annoyance Gerald felt over what Arnold said to him and Phoebe back in the cafeteria, he couldn't help but look surprised when he saw the look of Arnold's face. His football-headed friend looked a lot more alive than he had in the last week or so.

Arnold sat down in the desk beside him and said in an excited-sounding voice, "Gerald, I've got something! There may be a way to show Helga didn't do it! I'll explain after school!"

Before Gerald could ask him if he'd been touching the mystery meat back in the cafeteria, Mr. Simmons came in and started talking to them about science and history homework. Gerald glanced over at Arnold, who was looking at Mr. Simmons, but didn't seem to be seeing him, or listening to him at all. Gerald knew that look well. Arnold always got the look whenever he was lost in his own world, daydreaming about something. Something good if the look on his face was any indication.

Gerald didn't know what Arnold found out, or thought he could do, but he knew Arnold was convinced it would work. His anger at his best friend forgotten, Gerald turned his attention back to schoolwork; but every now and again, he would glance over at Arnold, who was smiling to himself, and was concerned that his friend was getting his hopes up again.

A few hours later, Gerald and Phoebe meet up with Arnold at the bottom of the steps leading up to the front door. Arnold smiled as he came down to them, and he pulled out a piece of folded notebook paper from his pocket. "Here read this!"

Both of them read the short note and then looked at each other. Gerald blinked as he read then looked up and saw that Phoebe looked a little bit hopeful also, but like him, also very cautious. Arnold meanwhile looked excited. "You know what this means? Somebody saw one of my flyers and they are going to tell what they know."

Gerald looked at his buddy and said, "Arnold, you don't know who could have sent this? It might just be someone playing a bad prank on you. You could go out there and spend all night waiting for someone who may never come."

Arnold blinked, not expecting this particular reaction from Gerald. He thought for sure he would be as intrigued as he was by the note. Arnold looked at Phoebe, who looked at him a little worried and nodded. "I'm afraid that I have to concur with Gerald, Arnold."

"I can't believe you two!" Arnold said getting annoyed now. "Right here we have proof that someone else was responsible for the fire and that someone saw it happen and you two don't believe it?!"

Gerald sighed knowing this would happen. "Arnold, why would anyone who saw what really happened not just go to the police? Or Principal Wartz? Or just leave the note with them if they couldn't tell?"

"Maybe because they knew that none of them would believe them, the way none of them believed Helga," Arnold said, the bitterness of that injustice made him frown.

"Maybe so, man, but what if it's a prank? Or worse? The letter says whoever did it they are afraid of. I'm coming with you tonight, Arnold." Gerald said loyally. Phoebe nodded, "Me too."

Arnold looked at them and said, "Listen guys, I'm sorry about before when I snapped at you, but maybe tonight I should do this alone like the note said."

Gerald knew Arnold was going to be stubborn, but he also stood his ground. "No way you're going to stand around at night waiting alone for someone who might not show up."

"Gerald, I have to do this. I feel responsible for what happened to Helga."

Phoebe blinked, "Arnold, that's completely ridiculous! You had nothing to do with Helga ending up in that terrible place!"

"Maybe not, but I promised her that I would get her out somehow, and I haven't done much since then. It's been on my mind so much and now I have a chance to really do something worthwhile to save Helga." He looked at them and smiled. "Thanks for not staying mad at me, and for sticking with me in all this. I know it hasn't been easy."

Gerald smiled, "No it hasn't and I agree with Phoebe, you're letting this thing get to you bad. But I understand man, and you're right. If it was Phoebe in Cherry Hell, I wouldn't stop till I found out how to get her out. When you find a good girl, you have to stand by her no matter what." Phoebe looked at him and smiled at his words.

Arnold did also and said, "Thanks Gerald. Thank you both. I couldn't do any of this without your support, but tonight I have to do this alone. I'll call you when I know what's going on, okay?"

Gerald hesitated, and then he said, "I don't like it, Arnold, but okay, we'll sit tight and wait on you." He offered his fist with the thumb out. Arnold brought his own fist against his and they did their friendship thumbshake. Phoebe smiled and simply hugged Arnold and told him, "Good luck tonight." Arnold nodded and then turned and left them standing there.

Phoebe looked at Gerald and said, "Are we really just going to let him go out there alone?"

Gerald smiled and said, "I just said we wouldn't go out there, but I'm going to make a couple of calls so Arnold has backup just in case." He looked down and saw that he still had the note. "Oh man, Arnold left this."

He was about to go run after Arnold when Phoebe said, "Wait a moment, Gerald. May I see it?" He handed her the note and she looked it over again and frowned. "I know that handwriting from somewhere." She bit her lip thinking and then finally she took Gerald's hand. "Come with me."

"Huh? Where are we going?" He asked as Phoebe led him back into the school.

"The school library, the handwriting of every person at PS 118 is in the yearbook for last year. I'm going to compare the handwritings of each person and find out who wrote the note."

Gerald blinked at his girlfriend's logic and said, "Baby, you're a genius!"

Phoebe only blushed and said, "I know."

The school library was just about to close when they got there. Phoebe wasted no time telling the librarian that she needed to borrow one last year's yearbooks from a project. The librarian, knowing Phoebe was trustworthy and believed her entirely lent it to her on the promise she return it the next day.

After that, Gerald and Phoebe went to Gerald's house where he went to make a pair of phone calls then joined Phoebe at the kitchen table. After an interruption from Timberly (who took turns teasing them for being a couple and wanted to know if they would start kissing when she left, at which point Gerald kicked her out while Phoebe chuckled watching) they got to work comparing the signatures of each student with the note.

They began with the kids in their class. Like Arnold, the two of them had grown sour on their classmates, and the idea that any one of them would pull such a cruel prank was no longer so far-fetched. However, none of the signatures matched the note, to their relief. After that they tested the usual pranksters, like Wolfgang and his gang of fifth graders. Again no matches. They even checked Cookie and Simone, along with several of their known associates in the sixth grade Phoebe mentioned, including Connie and Maria–who didn't hang around with them anymore.

No luck on any of them.

Frustration began to kick in. Phoebe frowned "I was certain that it could have been one of them." There was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice over that gang. Gerald could sympathize with it.

Gerald knew Connie and Maria from last fall, when he and Arnold took them to the sixth grade dance posing as sixth graders themselves. Not that either girl was actually fooled, but only took them because they were using them to make their boyfriends jealous. Although both of them admitted to the boys that they did have a good time, and then both Arnold and Gerald scored a kiss on the cheek from each girl.

His experiences may have been mostly pleasant–aside from nearly getting pounded flat by Connie's boyfriend, but Phoebe's hadn't been. He'd reacted in shock when he heard from Phoebe how Connie and Maria went along with Cookie and Simone in taking complete advantage of Phoebe's honesty and making her do all their homework and giving her all her money. Even more of a shock was how Phoebe told him Helga was there to comfort her and to help get even with them. She'd given the details which made Gerald laugh whenever he thought about it–who knew thumbtacks, string and a watermelon could have such humorous uses?

The more Phoebe told him about Helga's friendship with her, the more he came to understand how Arnold could love her. She even hinted to him that Helga had similar feelings for Arnold, but didn't give him any details. Gerald decided that if two people he cared about so much saw more in Helga Pataki that she showed, he could find it in himself to do the same. Besides, most of his animosity toward Helga came from what he perceived at the time to be her bullying of Arnold and mistreatment of Phoebe. If they held no grudges, then he couldn't. It was just Gerald's nature.

They continued to go through each grade, starting with the forth grade class and up. When none of those turned out to be the same they took a short break and Gerald got them refills on their drinks.

"Phoebe, we've been at this for three hours now. Maybe whoever it was disguised their handwriting so nobody would know who it was?"

Phoebe paused thinking. "Maybe, but I'm sure that I know that handwriting from somewhere. I just can't place it."

"But we've been through all of the forth, fifth and sixth graders. A few are close but not a match."

"Then maybe it's someone from the younger grades?" Phoebe said, then looked thoughtful, almost as if some thought came to her mind then left and she was fighting hard to bring it back,

"Well if it is, then they must have very neat handwriting for a third grader," Gerald said, being humorous.

It was as if a lightbulb went off over Phoebe's head. Her small brown eyes widened and she stood up quickly. "That's it!" She flipped through the yearbook to the third graders and quickly found a picture and signature. She compared the handwriting and then smiled, "Of course! The Penmanship Awards! I should of thought of it! Gerald, you're amazing! I love you!" She leaned over and kissed a very surprised Gerald lips to lips.

Phoebe broke off and blushed at her sudden boldness, while Gerald looked back at Phoebe surprised, his own dark cheeks slightly red and said, "Um we need to solve mysteries together more often."

Phoebe smiled and nodded. "Yeah. Um, Gerald. I uh, well, I'm glad I . . . um, that is to say, I'm really glad we, uh . . .um . . ."

Gerald took her hand and smiled, "Me too."

A small snicker and laugh could be heard from the hall. Gerald turned annoyed and shouted, "TIMBERLY! GO AWAY!" Phoebe covered her mouth giggling.

Gerald then said, "Be glad you're an only child." Then he got back to business. "Anyhow, who is it?"

Phoebe pointed to the picture in the book and Gerald looked over seeing the image of a young looking third grader with curly red hair, big teeth, and large glasses. The name under the picture, along with the neat signature read: Siobhan Andrews.

Gerald got a phone book and found two addresses for Andrews. Both of which were luckily only a few blocks from each other, but were both over eight blocks away from Gerald's house.

"We have to hurry, it's seven-thirty now," Gerald said.

Together him and Phoebe left the house to catch a bus. It only occurred to Gerald then that he should of called Arnold to let him know what was going on. He then decided to wait and see what he and Phoebe would learn from Siobhan.

The two of the arrived at the first address at eight fifteen. The street lights were bright here and there were plenty of people around. The building was a red brick three story building with a few missing bricks in the stoop. They went to the front door and knocked. A man answered, looking annoyed. "Yeah, what do youse want?"

Gerald blinked, "Um is Siobhan here?"

The man frowned and said, "I don't know anyone by that name. Whatever you're selling beat it!" He slammed the door in their faces unceremoniously.

Gerald sighed, "Well that one isn't it." Phoebe took his hand and they raced the next three blocks to the other address. It was an old-looking green painted building with two floors. They went to the front door and knocked. A woman with red curly hair answered, "Yes, may I help you?"

Phoebe smiled, "Is Siobhan here? My name is Phoebe and this is Gerald. Were students at PS 118."

"Oh? Well come on in," she opened the door inviting them in. She then called out, "Siobhan you have visitors!" She looked at them. "May I get you something to drink, cookies?"

"Um, no thank you, ma'am," Gerald said and Phoebe just shook her head.

"So are you two friends of my daughter?"

Phoebe smiled, "Um, actually were in the forth grade just above her. We need to talk to her about something related to the incident two weeks ago."

"Oh the fire," she blinked. "Yes that was dreadful. I heard a juvenile delinquent started it because the principal gave her detention of all things. No offense to you two, you seem nice, but I considered withdrawing her from PS 118 after that. My Siobhan is so sweet and they advanced her to the sixth grade awhile back for a brief time, till she got picked on by other hooligans."

Phoebe nodded in sympathy at the last part and managed to hold it together over her description of Helga. "Yes I had similar problems with the same hooligans, Mrs. Andrews."

"She was so upset today when she got home, she didn't even eat any lunch, and hardly touched dinner," the girl's mother told them. "This town used to be a much safer place."

Just then a red-headed third grade girl came into the living room and said, "Mommy, who did you–OH!" The girl's eyes widened behind her glasses when she saw Phoebe and Gerald.

"Ah here she is," Mrs. Andrews said not noticing that her daughter turned white as milk. "I leave you kids alone to talk then."

After Mrs. Andrews left Phoebe walked over to Siobhan, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "Siobhan, my name is Phoebe Heyerdahl and this is Gerald Johansen, my boyfriend."

Siobhan took a step back, "I know who you are. You used to hang around with Cookie and Simone and their gang." Her lip was trembling and she shook. "W-what do you want with me? Did they send you here?"

Phoebe shook her head, "No they didn't. We're not here to hurt you. We just want some information from you."

Gerald pulled the note out of his pocket and held it out. "Did you write this?"

Now Siobhan looked very ill. Her eyes watered up and she began to cry. Phoebe and Gerald looked at each other and then led her gently to the couch nearby sitting down on either side of her. "Its okay, we're not here to hurt you, I promise." Phoebe said gently. "But we need to know why you wrote this note? It is true? Did you see who started the fire in Principal Wartz office?"

She took a deep calming breath and wiped her eyes with the hanky that Gerald gave her. Then she said, "They threatened to beat me up if I didn't write it and put it in that boy, Arnold's locker. They said if I didn't they would beat me up and if I told anyone they would break my arms."

Now Gerald looked alert and said, "Who? Who threatened you?"

"Simone, and Billy Nash," she said shaking in terror. "I'm sorry, I really am!" She sobbed.

Phoebe hugged her close trying her best to comfort her, despite the sudden shock she felt hearing those names. She looked at Gerald who now looked as stricken as the third grade girl. He remembered well the threat that Billy Nash made when Arnold defended Phoebe from Simone and the reputation that both of them together had. Now Gerald wished he'd called Arnold when he had the chance.

Just then the nearby grandfather clock struck nine.

* * *

Arnold arrived at the corner of 93rd and Dunham Streets about the time that Phoebe and Gerald were running to Siobhan's house. He sat down on the bench and looked around. The area he was in was not exactly the rough part of downtown, but it was practically deserted and half of the street lights were not working. The one he sat under, near the bus stop flickered a little. He looked up at it, seeing dozens of moths fluttering around it. He pulled his coat closed and zipped it up to keep out the cool nighttime air.

Soon there was nobody on the street at all and Arnold suddenly had a foreboding sense that maybe coming out alone wasn't such a good idea. But the note did say to come alone and if this person saw who really set the fire, and could prove Helga is innocent, then it would be worth it.

Arnold put his hand in his pocket and then blinked remembering that he forgot to take the locket with him, being in such a hurry to get here he didn't even tell his grandparents where he was going. Arnold wasn't superstitious, but he liked having the locket around to comfort him, especially now.

A church bell rang nearby nine times. It was time. He stood, stretching his legs and it was then that he heard a wild laugh coming from around the corner. Arnold paused and looked in the direction of where it came from. He couldn't see anything.

Then another wild laugh and the sound of the motor of a Honda cycle could be heard coming from around the block.

Then another.

And then another!

Light beams could be seen and then the headlights of about five motorbikes appeared. On top of them were five figures dressed in ghoulish Halloween masks and goblin outfits. Each of them had what looked like pool cues in their hands.

Arnold recognized the bikes and he took off down the street as fast as he could. He didn't turn but he knew that the bikes were catching up to him. The loud, banshee-like howls of the ghouls riding them growing louder and more insane.

Then he heard the voices: "Run that little bastard down!" "Run piggy, run!"

Arnold ran as fast as he could, struggling to breathe as he barely dodged being run down by one of the front wheels of one of the motorbikes as he turned and ran down a narrow alley and straight for a ten-foot graffiti covered brick wall at the end. He knew that on the other side of the dead end was a well lit street close to his own neighborhood. About halfway to the wall, headlights shown behind him, casting his shadow against the wall as he ran. He heard the sound of the engines and the hooting laughter of the hoods as they blocked him in from behind.

Arnold didn't even pause as he made a leap at one of the aluminum garbage cans against the wall and, using his forward momentum, made a jump at the wall, just barely managing to catch the very top of it with his fingertips. He struggled desperately to pull himself up over the wall, and just managed to put his left arm up over the top when a strong pair of hands grabbed his leg and jerked him hard back down the wall. Arnold's grip failed him and he was roughly thrown on the ground.

He tried to get up in an attempt to fight back somehow, but instead he was met with a boot to the side of the face. Arnold fell backwards hitting the back of his head against the wall. His hat fell off and landed next to him on the trash-covered ground. Stars filled his vision as he heard the sound of laughter all around him.

There were five of the attackers, all of them were big and wearing werewolf Halloween masks. One of them came forward and grabbed Arnold by the collar of his shirt lifting him half up from the ground.

"I told you we'd play later you little shit!" Billy Nash's harsh voice spoke from behind the mask, his eyes glaring down into Arnold's. He then punched Arnold in the chest hard, making Arnold yell loudly in pain. Nash threw Arnold into the garbage cans, knocking them over and leaving a huge dent in one of them.

Arnold felt like a rat caught in a trap. He panicked like one also. "HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! PLEASE!"

One of the gang members rushed over and kicked Arnold hard in the groin with his combat boots. Arnold suddenly felt all the air in his body leave and—worse yet—unable to breathe in. The pain shot through his whole mid-section and Arnold curled up into a fetal position gasping for air.

The bullies then began to punch, kick and pound on Arnold, who could only cover his face, fearing for his life. He was right to. The next moment he felt something being poured all over him and the cuts on his hands and face began to burn. He could smell the alcohol and began to cough as a little of it ran into his bleeding mouth, making his lips burn.

"Billy, what the hell are you doing, man?!" One of the hoods said, sounding alarmed. Arnold uncovered his face long enough to see Billy Nash opening up a Zippo lighter and striking it. _Oh no! Oh God, somebody please help me!_

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_

_Oh man, how's that for a cliffhanger?_

_How will Arnold get out of this? Will Billy Nash torch him alive? Who did Gerald call and will they get there in time? What will Helga do when she finds out? _

_Don't worry I will update soon if you write me many reviews for this and give me your opinion on what happens next. I promise on my word as an Arnold fan this story is not going on hiatus anytime soon! No way are Arnold fans going to be spending the summer having nightmares and yes Helga will be in the next chapter!_

_Let me know as soon as you can. ~D.R. _


	43. Part 42: Rescued and the White Wolf

**Part Forty-Two: Rescued and The White Wolf Returns  
**

"Hey man, we can get in serious trouble!" One of the gang members said nervously.

Nash turned to him, and his zippo went out. "Hey! Relax! Me and Simone thought this whole thing through. This little bastard has it coming to him!"

"Yeah well I don't see your little bitch here," the masked goon said.

"Hey man, relax!" Another said to the nervous guy.

Arnold knew listening to Nash's cold, uncaring voice that he was either about to die, or be permanently disfigured. He felt light-headed from the smell of the alcohol that was burning all of his cuts and scrapes. He gasps trying to regain his breath, but knew it was pointless at the same time. He couldn't run, or fight back in his condition.

_Oh please God, save me! _He thought to himself frantically.

Just then there was a sound like a long, low howling that froze Nash and his thugs in their tracks. Arnold heard it too. It sounded almost like a large dog, or a wolf howling.

"What the hell was that?"

Nash recovered quicker, "It was just a dog. Damn you guys are such pussies!" He gave Arnold one more kick in the chest, then reignited the Zippo. "So long, punk!" Arnold could practically hear the sadistic glee in his voice. He closed his eyes, waiting to feel his skin catch fire, shaking like a leaf.

Just then another sound. This time not a howling, but the sound of something flying through the air. Just then Nash screamed and the lighter went flying out of his hand out of reach and away from Arnold. He opened his eyes and saw that the Zippo had what looked like some sort-of rubber-tipped dart on it.

"Shit! What the hell was-"

"Look!" One of the goons said, sounding nervous.

Then a familiar female voice spoke up. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with fire?"

The gang members, Nash and Arnold all looked up to see a young woman in a tight, form-fitting blue suit with a pink utility belt hugging her hips standing on top of the graffiti-covered wall. It was Bridget! Her auburn hair blew in the wind and the moon in the background complemented the superhero aura she displayed.

"Get her!" Nash shouted pulling out his switchblade. The motorbike gang charged at her with their weapons raised, baying like wolves.

Bridget smiled and then jumped, doing a somersault and landed in the thick of them. Then she used a combination of martial arts moves against the surprised bullies. Most of these involved leg sweeps and high kicks that Arnold might of been slightly more than impressed by if the situation wasn't so serious.

While Bridget was disarming and beating up his gang, Nash abandoned his victim and (stopping only long enough to get his lighter) went for his bike to get away. But before he could do so, a loud cry of: "MONKEYMAN!" could be heard and a thin figure dressed in jeans, t-shirt and red cape swung down from a rope and tried to kick him from his bike.

Unfortunately, he over-estimated the distance and, with a startled Nash ducking just in time, Monkeyman overshot his target and instead crashed hard into Bridget and two of Nash's gang members.

"OW! Hey watch it, you big ape!" Bridget said annoyed. Monkeyman lay across her waist on top of her groaning.

"Run guys!"

"Let's get the hell out of here!"

"Wait for us, man!"

The gang jumped onto their bikes and took off before Bridget could successfully get the stunned Monkeyman off of her and pull out one of her gadgets. Nash was already way ahead of them.

"Oh great, they got away," Bridget said frowning.

"Sorry, it was my–Monkeyman!–fault," Monkeyman said dejectedly. "I knew I should of used my banana peels."

Arnold began to pass out from the pain. Bridget was at Arnold's side in a second. "Arnold, can you hear me? Arnold stay with us!" Monkeyman knelt down on his other side. He heard their voices from far away. The last thing that Arnold heard was Monkeyman saying he'd get an ambulance and Bridget frantically calling his name before falling into oblivion.

* * *

_Arnold found himself standing in a forest surrounded by pine trees and a thick white fog. He looked up and saw a sky full of stars in a pink evening sunset. He couldn't see anyone, but somehow he didn't feel as if he were alone._

_As he walked further into the woods he heard the sound of rushing water ahead of him. Arnold walked on and found a creek. He knelt down and splashed some water on his face and then watched the ripples distort his own reflection and then replace it with that of Helga's. He blinked surprised and then her reflection was gone. _

"_Helga," he whispered sadly. "Where are you?" He looked up and then saw another reflection across from his on the opposite side of the creek. It looked like a woman with brown hair and a beautiful smile dressed in a white so pure it almost looked unearthly. The woman seemed familiar somehow, but he couldn't quite place where. He looked up and was again surprised. The reflection was gone but instead of a woman dressed in white, a large white wolf sat across from him looking at him with bright blue eyes. _

_Arnold felt a moment of fear and stood up. The wolf made no move to stand, nor did it growl at him. Instead it just tilted its head looking at him, almost studying him. For some reason Arnold didn't feel afraid of the white wolf. _

"_Do you know where Helga is?" he asked it, feeling a little foolish right afterwards. The wolf opened its mouth and its tongue hung out, just like an ordinary dog would have done. Then it barked once. _

_Arnold blinked. "You understood me?" The white wolf barked again. _

"_So you know where Helga is! Can you take me to her?" The wolf then let out a whimper and looked down sadly. Arnold knew that he couldn't get to Helga now,t hat she was separated from him and he was unable to reach her. _

_He sat back down and looked down at the rippling water defeated a moment. Then the white wolf barked once more. Arnold looked up and saw that it came over to him, was now nearly face to face with him. Its blue eyes were so deep and so beautiful, almost exactly like Helga's (at least when they weren't angry or calling him mocking nicknames). But there was something deeper there, a range of emotions behind those eyes that was more human than beast. Something hauntingly familiar and it was on the edge of his memory, but he was unable to reach it....just like he was unable to reach Helga._

_Then Arnold had a thought. He looked at the wolf and asked, "Have you seen Helga and can you get to her?" _

_The white wolf seemed to smile as it barked at him._

"_You can! Then can you please watch over her until she can come back to me?"_

_The wolf stuck its tongue out again and Arnold could see white, sharp teeth but again didn't feel threatened. Indeed in the presence of the white wolf he somehow felt safer than he'd ever felt in his life. He boldly reached up and petted the wolf on its head. "I never realized until she was gone how much she means to me. I don't want her to be locked away, especially since she didn't do what she was accused of. I love her, and I guess I always have, but I didn't know it at first, even when she told me she loved me."_

_The wolf licked his hand when he pulled it away and then nuzzled against his shoulder. He hugged the wolf, burying his face into its warm white coat. "Please watch over her till we can be together again. Please keep her safe." He started to cry._

I will my Arnold, I promise you, _an angelic female voice seemed to say inside his head. Arnold's eyes widened and the white wolf was gone. In front of him were a set of dog-like footprints on the muddy bank but no sign of the white wolf. _

_The voice of the White Wolf–and even though he knew the wolf itself didn't talk, Arnold knew also that it had indeed spoken to him–somehow sounded familiar and also out of reach in his memory. _

"_Arnold," another voice spoke just then, again familiar. Then a small beeping sound appeared along with it. _

_This was followed by other voices: "Arnold, hey Arnold!" _

"_He's waking up!" _

"_Thank God!" _

_The beeping sound made Arnold's head hurt and the forest and the fog soon gave way to a brighter light and then . . . . _

Arnold slowly opened his eyes and saw that he was surrounded by the faces of his grandparents and his extended family members.

"Hey there, shortman," his grandpa said smiling down at him slightly. "You gave us all a little bit of a scare there."

He opened his mouth to talk but his mouth was too dry to talk.

"Here's some water, Kimba," his grandmother said handing him a paper cup and helping him sit up long enough to drink it down. He coughed as a bit too much went down the wrong pipe. Then he managed to choke out, "W-Where am I?"

"You're at Hillwood Memorial Hospital," a halfway bald man answered. He wore a doctors white coat and had a pair of glasses. "Move back everyone, I have to check him for signs of brain damage, or swelling."

_Brain damage? Swelling? _Arnold blinked wondering how long he was out.

The doctor shined a light into his eyes and then asked, "What's three times four?"

"Um, twelve."

"What's color is my tie?"

"Red."

"Follow my pen with your eyes–yes that's very good. What grade are you in?"

"Um, forth grade," Arnold answered feeling his head throb.

"What's your last name?"

"Oh give it a rest, you quack!" Grandpa suddenly said annoyed. "He's fine, aren't you?"

"My head hurts," Arnold said closing his eyes.

"That's to be expected," the doctor said producing some aspirin. "You've just woke up from a small coma."

"Coma? How long was I out?" Arnold asked.

"About forty hours," the doctor said. "You were brought in by EMT after you were assaulted. Do you remember what happened?"

It all came back to Arnold just then. Billy Nash and his gang. Him running for his life. The alcohol and then Bridget and Monkeyman saving him. He tried to sit up but the doctor held him back a bit. "Easy son, don't try to do too much at once." Arnold then realized he was sore in other places, especially his left side and his back. His face hurt also.

"It was Billy Nash and his gang," Arnold said looking up at them and the white tiled ceiling. "Did the police catch them?"

His family looked at each other and their faces either darkened, or looked worried. Before the could say anything, Arnold heard a familiar voice from nearby say, "Hey Arnold." He looked over to the doorway and saw Gerald and Phoebe standing there looking torn between happy and ready to cry.

Arnold's grandpa smiled and said, "Well, its good to see you're back with us, Shortman. Alright everybody, let's give Arnold and his friends time to talk." They left telling Arnold to get well soon and offering their support, all of which he was grateful for. The doctor helped Arnold sit up long enough to take a couple of aspirin and then swallow down some more water before he too left.

Phoebe rushed over and then hugged Arnold sobbing. "Oh Arnold, we thought you weren't going to wake up!"

"Yeah you gave us quite a scare there, buddy," Gerald said standing beside Phoebe and wiping his own eyes.

Arnold smiled and said, "I'm okay you guys. I feel a little bit sore, especially my face, but I'll be okay."

"Um, hello?" A female voice said at the doorway. It was Rhonda. She was carrying a vase of flowers and behind her Nadine stood with another vase and some balloons. "They told me that Arnold was awake and I....oh my!" She froze in her tracks looking at Arnold. Nadine looked a little shocked also but didn't say anything. "Um, I'll just put them over here with the others," Rhonda said when she was able to compose herself.

"Others?" Arnold asked curiously. He looked over where Rhonda and Nadine went and saw a table full of flowers, balloons, candies and cards. One was a wreath that said, "Get well soon" and another was a teddy bear with a get well card in its hands. He blinked surprised at the amount of well wishes. "Wow, all of that for me?"

"Yeah, man." Gerald said smiling. "When everyone found out you got hurt they got you some things. Everyone in class, Mr. Simmons, Dr. Bliss, all of the boarders and even Monkeyman and Bridget left you some things too. I guess they felt bad that they let that creep Nash get away."

Rhonda glared then. "I hope that this catches up to them! How dare they do something like this to a boy like Arnold!" Nadine nodded vigorously in agreement.

Arnold was surprised by the words. Despite the recent problems between him and his friends, they all came together when he was hurt to show their support. He smiled at them, his disapproval of their opinion of Helga momentarily forgiven. "Thanks Rhonda, Nadine. Tell everyone I said thank you for me."

Rhonda nodded, "We will Arnold, count on it."

Nadine added, "Hope you feel better soon, Arnold." With that the two of them left waving to him warmly.

Arnold lay back and smiled. He now knew that once Helga was proven innocent that all of their friends would see that they were wrong and all would be better. Sure they could be pretty fickle at times when something happened, but in the end everyone always seemed to come back together at the end of every crisis.

Phoebe smiled, "Everyone got you cards, Lila got you're the bear. Sid and Stinky got you the wreath and everyone else brought their own flowers. Oh and Mr. Kokashka and Harold both brought you the chocolates....um, however I believe most of them are missing."

Arnold couldn't help but smile at that. Then he looked at them. "How bad do I look?"

Gerald and Phoebe both shared a look. "Um, its bad, man. You got bruised all over, a contusion in one of your ribs and you were kicked in the head hard. That's why you passed out. The doctor said you had a severe concussion and that your brain swelled up a bit." Phoebe took off her glasses and wiped her eyes and Gerald explained it all.

Arnold then said, "My face feels bruised." He remembered Rhonda's reaction and the asked, "Is there a mirror?" They looked concerned again. "Please guys, let me look."

Gerald bit his lip and then handed Arnold a hand-held mirror from the night stand. Arnold looked at it and saw that the left side of his face was covered in one big purple and black bruise and there was a smaller almost greenish one on his jaw. There were a few cuts and a bandaged covered a cut over his left eye. He took it all in and then set the mirror down, not blaming them for looking shocked at his condition.

"Well you do look like you had a battle with a subway train and came out worse for it." Gerald tried to sound more humorous, however he frowned and said, "Damn it, Arnold! Those jerks who did this to you got away! We told them who they were, however Nash and his gang supposedly had an alibi."

"Cookie and Simone," Phoebe said, her own usually pleasant face twisted in pent-up frustration at the injustice. "The police said they had no evidence at the scene, and even Bridget and Monkeyman were unable to positively identify any of them."

"They were wearing masks," Arnold said remembering. "They chased me down an alley on their bikes and then attacked me. Nash said..." He blinked. "He was doing it because of what happened with Simone! They must of planted the note and then set me up!"

Gerald nodded, "That's exactly what happened, man. Me and Phoebe tracked down the person who wrote the note for them. It was that girl, Siobhan from the third grade, the one that Cookie and Simone also used when Phoebe was sent to the sixth grade. They made her write the note so that nothing would be traced back to them. I called Bridget to let her know to watch out for you and I guess Monkeyman was there too when it happened. When we talked to the cops, we didn't mention the note in case it got Siobhan in trouble and she already felt bad for all of it."

Arnold nodded, "I'm glad, Gerald. I don't want anyone else to suffer because I was too stupid to see the trap." He looked away angry with himself for worrying everyone.

"Arnold stop that," Phoebe said, surprising both him and Gerald. "You did it because you believed in Helga's innocence and you hoped to prove it. You were willing to risk the unknown in order to right a wrong and defend someone who means something to you. You have nothing to feel ashamed of."

"Yeah buddy," Gerald said agreeing with her. "You were just being who you always are. Mr. Do The Right Thing. Even if it puts you in danger, you always go out and do the right thing, and do you know why you do that, why you always have to look on the bright side?"

Now Arnold looked at his best friend and smiled a little. "Because somebody has to."

"Well you're not alone, man. We're sticking by you and when you're better were going to keep looking. Who knows maybe we might still find something somewhere?"

Arnold smiled at Gerald's newfound optimism and then he felt very lightheaded. "Thanks, both of you."

The doctor came in and said, "Your friend needs his rest. You can come back in the morning and talk some more."

Gerald then took Arnold's hand and said, "Get better soon, we need you, man." Arnold then managed to do their thumbshake, despite the heart monitor thing connected to his thumb. Phoebe told him goodbye and then, surprisingly leaned over and kissed his forehead. They left looking back at him and wishing him well. He waved back and then closed his eyes.

Just before he fell back asleep Arnold realized he forgot to tell them about the white wolf in his strange coma dream. He soon dozed off and enjoyed a dreamless sleep for once.

_**To Be Continued . . . . **_

_Well now that Arnold is out of danger, its time to head back to Cherry Hell and see how Helga is dealing with things, including the news of Arnold's brush with Nash's gang. You don't want to miss it! Read and Review! ~D.R. _


End file.
